THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 


RELIGION  AND  THE 
HIGHER  LIFE 

Talks  to  Students 


BY 

WILLIAM   RAINEY  HARPER 

PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO 


CHICAGO 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
1904 


COPYRIGHT    1904 
THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO 


September,  1904 


"1-3  I 

Htf 


TO  MY  FATHER  AND  MOTHER 

IN  HONOR  OF 

THE  FIFTIETH  ANNIVERSARY 
OF  THEIR  MARRIAGE 


5732G6 


PREFACE 

THERE  have  been  gathered  together  in  this  volume 
some  of  the  talks,  more  or  less  informal,  which  it 
has  been  my  privilege  to  address  in  these  last  years 
to  companies  of  young  men  and  women,  particularly 
students.  Three  of  these  papers  have  been  published 
before. 

The  topics  are  those  that  all  young  men  and 
women  are  compelled  to  consider,  whether  they  will  or 
not.  I  have  not  supposed  that  in  these  talks  any 
new  thought  was  presented.  I  have  felt,  however, 
that  something  perhaps  was  accomplished,  if  a  fair 
consideration  of  the  old  thought  might  be  secured. 

I  am  more  confident  today  than  ever  before  that 
the  universities  and  colleges  are  not  performing  their 
full  function  in  the  matter  of  religious  education. 
There  is  need  of  a  reconsideration  of  this  whole  sub- 
ject. Who  will  undertake  the  task?  Meanwhile, 
the  least  one  can  do  is  to  present  to  the  students  of 
each  scholastic  period  of  four  or  five  years  the  prac- 
tical questions  of  the  religious  life. 

Do  I  think  that  anyone  was  really  helped  by  these 
talks  ?  Some  have  acknowledged  that  they  received 
help;  but  this  acknowledgment  was  made,  perhaps, 
only  as  a  matter  of  courtesy.  In  any  case,  I  have 
in  this  way  discharged  in  a  measure  a  respon- 


viii  PREFACE 

sibility  which  has  weighed  upon  me  more  heavily 
than  any  other  connected  with  the  office  which  I 
have  been  called  to  administer. 

This  fact  brings  comfort  to  me,  if  to  no  one  else. 
And  yet  I  have  noticed  that,  with  each  recurring 
year,  it  has  required  a  greater  effort  on  my  part  to 
undertake  this  kind  of  service.  I  have  asked  myself 
whether,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  growing  more 
and  more  difficult  to  deal  with  subjects  of  this  kind 
in  a  university  atmosphere  ?  Perhaps  someone  will 
answer  this  question.  It  is  quite  certain  that  there 
are  many  who  will  be  interested  in  the  answer. 

Those  who  know  my  father  and  mother,  and 
their  lifelong  interest  not  only  in  the  religious  life, 
but  in  higher  education,  will  approve  my  desire  to 
acknowledge  this  interest,  as  it  has  manifested  itself 
in  connection  with  my  own  life,  by  inscribing  to 
them  this  small  collection  of  "talks  to  students." 
WILLIAM  RAINEY  HARPER. 

SEPTEMBER  26,  1904. 


CONTENTS 


I  PAGE 

RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE i 

II 
THE  RELIGIOUS  SPIRIT 21 

III 

FELLOWSHIP  AND  ITS  OBLIGATION  —  SERVICE      ...    36 

IV 
TRIALS  OF  LIFE 57 

V 
LOYALTY  TO  SELF 69 

VI 
DEPENDENCE 78 

VII 

CERTAINTY  AND  UNCERTAINTY  AS  FACTORS  IN  LIFE     .    88 

VIII 
OUR  INTELLECTUAL  DIFFICULTIES 101 

IX 

THE  COLLEGE  EXPERIENCE  AN  EPITOME  OF  LIFE     .    .113 

X 

RELIGIOUS  BELIEF  AMONG  COLLEGE  STUDENTS    .    .    .  132 

XI 

BIBLE  STUDY  AND  THE  RELIGIOUS  LIFE 141 

XII 

AMERICA  AS  A  MISSIONARY  FIELD 173 

be 


I 

RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

IT  was  a  great  moment  in  the  history  of  spiritual 
progress  when  the  individual  man  became  a  factor; 
for  till  that  moment  came  the  ascent  of  man  was 
largely  physical.  But  when  man  the  individual 
came  to  be  fully  recognized,  when  what  he  was  or 
might  be  had  for  its  largest  determining  element 
himself,  then  modern  civilization  had  its  beginning. 
The  powers  and  the  possibilities  of  the  individual, 
as  distinguished  from  those  of  the  family,  the  clan, 
or  the  nation;  the  responsibility  of  the  individual, 
as  distinguished  from  that  of  the  family,  the  clan, 
or  the  nation — these  constitute  the  real  basis  of  sub- 
stantial growth;  these  furnish  the  true  incentive 
toward  forward  movement;  these  supply  the  ele- 
ments required  for  the  realization  of  the  higher  life. 

The  higher  life — beginning  with  the  first  steps  of 
civilization,  inseparably  related  to  the  effort  of  the 
individual  man,  and  taking  on  higher  and  higher 
form  as  individual  effort  became  more  distinct  and 
determinative — has  manifested  itself  in  widely  varied, 
yet  closely  related,  forms  of  thought  and  action ;  and 
the  characteristics  of  these  forms,  always  plainly  dis- 
cernible, distinguish  it  from  that  which  is  below,  and 
also  from  that  which  we  may  call  the  highest. 


2         RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

In  several  fields  of  art  individual  men  and  women, 
through  all  the  centuries,  have  created  works  which 
have  lifted  not  only  themselves,  the  doers  of  the 
work,  into  the  higher  life,  but  likewise  all  of  their 
fellow-men  who  have  sincerely  sympathized  with 
such  work  and  entered  into  its  appreciation.  As 
evidence  of  this  higher  life,  and  as  its  fullest  vindica- 
tion, stands  out  the  long  line  of  the  world's  master- 
poets  and  writers,  its  artists  and  musicians,  with  the 
millions  upon  millions  whom  they  have  helped  and 
inspired. 

In  the  department  of  philosophy,  in  which  men 
have  made  gigantic  efforts  to  secure  knowledge  and 
to  ascertain  the  origin  of  things  and  their  relations, 
we  see  another  sphere  of  the  higher  life — a  sphere 
broader,  perhaps  higher  and  deeper,  than  that  of 
art ;  but  less  attractive  to  the  ordinary  man,  and  cer- 
tainly more  difficult  to  appropriate.  Yet  every  man 
who  really  thinks,  or  who  intelligently  questions  his 
world,  is  something  of  a  philosopher;  and  the  num- 
ber of  those  who  in  this  way  touch  only  the  border 
of  the  higher  life  is  probably  as  great  as  the  number 
of  those  who,  in  spite  of  wings  clipped  by  nature, 
would  follow  the  lofty  flights  of  the  artist.  And  in 
company  with  the  philosopher  and  his  disciples  are 
the  scientist  and  his  devoted  followers.  These,  too, 
seek  knowledge  and  wish  to  know  the  origin  of  things. 
And  all  these,  though  their  gropings  be  in  darkness, 
though  the  light  revealed  is  in  every  case  but  the 


RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE          3 

smallest  gleam,  lift  themselves,  by  force  of  the  very 
effort  made  to  see  the  light,  to  a  place  whence  they 
may  catch  a  vision  of  other  gleams  while,  with  each 
new  gleam  thus  possessed,  the  next  becomes  more 
clear. 

The  higher  life  includes  as  one  of  its  several 
spheres  that  of  ethical  purpose,  moral  effort.  Here 
the  element  of  individualism  is  clearly  marked. 
Every  man  who  endeavors  to  live  a  righteous  life, 
to  be  honest  and  pure;  every  man  who  puts  forth 
energy  to  perform  his  obligations  as  a  member  of  a 
family,  as  a  member  of  society,  as  a  citizen  of  the 
state,  holds  his  place,  high  or  low  as  it  may  be,  in 
the  constituency  of  the  higher  life.  That  all  men 
may  not  be  found  in  this  constituency  is  apparent. 
Is  it  not,  therefore,  presumptuous  that  we  should 
count  ourselves  therein  ?  We  may  not  assign  others 
of  our  fellow-men  here  and  there;  we  may  be  grossly 
deceived  in  any  estimate  we  may  hazard  as  to  our 
own  positon;  but  if  we  are  sincere,  we  should  be  able 
easily  to  determine  in  which  of  two  directions  we 
are  moving:  whether  downward  and  away  from  all 
that  is  beautiful  and  uplifting,  or  upward  and  toward 
that  which  incites,  elevates,  and  purifies  the  soul. 
For  this  sphere  of  moral  effort  is,  after  all,  the  one 
in  which  all  the  others  are  contained;  with  which  all 
the  others  are  identified. 

The  line  between  the  higher  and  the  lower  life  is 
not  the  same  for  any  two  individuals.  If,  for  any 


4         RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

reason,  we  permit  ourselves  to  dwell,  either  intellec- 
tually or  morally,  on  a  lower  plane  than  the  very 
highest  which  nature  and  our  environment  have 
made  possible,  we  live  the  lower  life.  It  is  only  the 
man  who  lives  the  highest  life  possible  for  him  to  live, 
that  may  be  said  to  live  the  higher  life;  the  failure, 
at  any  time,  to  put  forth  his  utmost  endeavor — a 
failure  of  which  in  every  case  he  is  unquestionably 
conscious — degrades  him,  from  a  higher  to  a  lower 
position.  On  the  other  hand,  the  man  who  has  been 
denied  opportunities  of  culture,  or  has  been  sur- 
rounded by  abnormal  and  injurious  influences, 
actually  enters  upon  a  stage  of  the  higher  life  at  the 
very  moment  when  his  mind  and  his  life  are  turned 
away  from  that  which  has  pulled  him  down  and  are 
lifted  upward. 

There  is  a  question  we  must  now  put  to  ourselves. 
Do  those  of  us  who  are  associated  with  university 
work  sustain  any  peculiar  or  special  relation  to  this 
constituency  which  lives,  or  tries  to  live,  the  higher 
life?  Yes,  a  double  relation;  in  that,  first  of  all, 
we  make  public  profession  of  membership;  for  in 
the  very  act  of  becoming  associated  with  an  institu- 
tion of  higher  learning,  whether  as  student  or  as 
instructor,  one  openly  announces  to  the  world  his 
purpose  to  be  of  those  who  interest  themselves  in  the 
higher  things  of  thought  and  life.  And,  further,  in 
this  act  we  proclaim  ourselves  leaders  in  this  life. 
This  may,  indeed,  be  an  act  of  presumption  on  our 


RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE         5 

part;  but  it  is  an  act  which  will  bear  no  other  inter- 
pretation. It  is  what  every  man  does  who  makes 
effort,  in  a  public  way,  to  lift  up  either  himself  or 
his  fellow-man.  If  all  this  be  true,  it  follows,  of 
course,  that  the  university  should  furnish  the  high- 
est ideals  for  life,  and  by  its  discipline  make  possible 
examples  of  the  highest  type  of  living. 

The  artist  and  the  student  of  art,  whether  in 
literature  or  painting,  the  philosopher  and  the  stu- 
dent of  philosophy,  the  scientist  and  the  student  of 
science,  the  moralist  and  the  student  of  morals,  are 
expected  to  be  the  leaders — and,  as  experience  shows, 
have  been  among  the  leaders — in  the  higher  life. 
It  is,  therefore,  an  appropriate  thing  that,  at  this 
time,  I  should  ask  a  question  concerning  this  higher 
life — a  life  with  which,  at  least  professedly,  we  are 
so  much  concerned.  The  question  may  be  put 
briefly  in  these  words:  What  has  religion  to  do  with 
the  higher  life?  The  answers  to  this  question  are 
both  negative  and  positive:  Religion  is  not  the 
mother  of  art,  science,  philosophy,  and  ethics. 
Religion  is  not  to  be  identified  with  one  or  all  of 
these.  Religion  is  not  the  enemy  of  art,  science, 
philosophy,  or  ethics.  Religion  is  independent  of 
these  phases  of  the  higher  life,  but  closely  akin — 
in  fact,  the  oldest  sister  of  the  family.  Religion  is 
essential  for  the  fullest  development  of  these  phases 
of  the  higher  life.  Religion  must  have  certain  char- 
acteristics to  work  in  harmony  with  them. 


6         RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

In  the  use  of  the  word  "religion  "I  am  not  think- 
ing of  the  church,  for  the  church  is  of  a  transitory 
and  variable  character;  she  takes  on  different  forms 
at  different  periods  of  her  growth  and  under  different 
environments,  and  at  times,  and  in  certain  places 
passes  out  of  sight;  while  religion  is  something  as 
imperishable  as  the  mind  itself,  of  which  it  is  a 
necessary  condition;  something  that  is  permanent 
and  not  a  mere  passing  phenomenon. 

Religion,  as  has  been  said,  is  a  condition  of 
the  mind;  but,  in  its  outward  form,  it  is  a  kind  of 
life;  in  fact,  the  life  which  is  the  outcome  of  the 
mental  condition.  Religion,  therefore,  takes  on 
many  forms,  and  in  each  case  that  form  which  is 
best  adapted  to  the  stage  or  phase  of  development 
already  attained  by  the  person  or  community 
concerned.  In  this  way  religion  adapts  itself  to 
varying  conditions  and  demands,  and  this  capa- 
bility of  adaptation,  it  should  be  noted,  instead  of 
weakening  religion,  strengthens  it.  The  capability 
of  such  adjustment  to  different  personal  tempera- 
ments, to  different  classes  of  society  in  the  same 
community,  and  to  communities  as  widely  separated 
as  are  nations  themselves — this  indicates  a  strength 
and  power  the  existence  of  which,  on  a  priori  con- 
siderations, one  would  be  compelled  to  deny. 

I  may  not  even  attempt  to  state  what  is  to  be 
regarded  as  the  essence  of  religion,  whether  it  be 
worship,  belief  in  the  supremacy  of  God,  the  act 


RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE         7 

of  faith,  or  the  spirit  of  piety.  But  as  a  concrete 
type  of  the  religion  of  this  day  and  of  this  land  I 
may  use  Christianity,  for,  since  religion  has  kept 
pace  with  civilization,  and  since  civilization,  con- 
trolled by  religion,  has  made  progress,  Christianity 
must  be  the  highest  and  most  perfect  form  of 
religion  thus  far  developed.  This  means,  of  course, 
Christianity  in  its  broadest  sense,  and  not  any  one 
of  the  special  forms  of  Christianity  which  have 
appeared. 

Coming  back  now  to  the  higher  life,  we  may  ask : 
What  has  religion  to  do  with  the  higher  life  ? 

i.  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  would  ask  a  place 
for  religion  in  the  higher  life  upon  the  ground  that 
each  of  the  different  phases  of  this  life,  whether  art, 
philosophy,  science,  or  ethics,  owes  its  origin  to 
religion.  This  contention  cannot  be  maintained; 
but  even  if  it  be  true,  it  fails  to  bring  us  to  the  neces- 
sary conclusion,  since  the  child,  in  time,  may  grow 
to  be  independent  of  its  mother. 

The  suggestions  that  the  first  attempts  of  art  had 
to  do  with  the  expression  of  religious  thought,  and 
that  consequently  religion  is  the  mother  of  art ;  that 
the  earliest  literature  is  religious  literature,  and  that 
therefore  religion  is  the  mother  of  literature ;  that  the 
first  philosophers  and  scientists  and  lawgivers  were 
priests;  that  astronomy  grew  out  of  astrology,  medi- 
cine from  sorcery;  and  that,  in  view  of  this,  philos- 
ophy and  science  and  ethics  are  the  offspring  of 


8          RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

religion,  I  may  not  now  discuss.  Today  I  do  not 
wish  to  base  an  argument  or  an  exhortation  for  the 
cultivation  of  religion  upon  this  foundation. 

As  against  the  idea  expressed  in  these  suggestions 
it  has  been  asked: 

2.  May  not  art,  philosophy,  science,  or  ethics  each 
constitute  a  religion  in  itself,  at  least  for  those  who 
are  its  devotees  or  followers?  Renan  maintained 
that  religion  (and  he  was  thinking  of  Christianity) 
was  nothing  but  an  expression  of  the  aesthetic  feel- 
ing— in  other  words,  art.  Many  other  writers  have 
urged  that  religion  is  but  a  crude  form  of  philosophy, 
and  that  when  a  pure  philosophy  prevails,  religion 
will  disappear.  Furthermore,  it  has  frequently  been 
suggested  that  science  itself  would  serve  as  religion, 
or  at  all  events  take  its  place.  Matthew  Arnold 
understood  by  religion  "morality  touched  with  emo- 
tion." This  conception  would  make  the  moral  and 
the  religious  life  identical,  except  that  the  former 
would  be  the  ideal,  and  the  latter  only  an  imperfect 
and  undeveloped  form. 

It  is  plainly  to  be  seen,  however,  that  to  propose 
the  substitution  of  one  or  another  of  these  phases 
of  the  higher  life  for  religion  is  merely  to  claim  that 
these  are  identical  with  religion,  and  that  they  do 
for  man  what  religion  aims  to  do.  For  myself,  I 
have  found  the  words  of  Professor  Tiele1  on  this 
point  particularly  illuminating: 

1  Elements  o}  the  Science  0}  Religion,  Vol.  II  (1899),  pp.  246  f. 


RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE         9 

The  difference  consists  chiefly  in  this,  that,  while  science, 
art,  and  morality  yield  a  certain  satisfaction,  or  even  a  consid- 
erable measure  of  happiness,  they  never  produce  that  perfect 
peace  of  mind,  that  entire  reconciliation  with  one's  self  and 
one's  worldly  lot,  which  are  the  fruits  of  religion,  and  have  ever 
characterized  the  truly  pious  of  all  ages.  The  greatest  genius, 
the  acutest  investigator,  and  the  profoundest  thinker,  who  have 
studied  the  most  difficult  of  problems,  and  have  made  darkness 
light  for  themselves  and  others,  will  be  the  first  to  confess  the 
limitations  of  their  knowledge  and  the  insolubility  of  many  of 
their  problems,  and  to  admit  that  faith  alone  can  answer  the 
momentous  and  vital  questions — Whence  and  whither  ?  Poetry 
and  art  may  brighten  this  earthly  life  with  their  luster,  they 
may  mitigate  sorrow  and  soothe  the  troubled  mind;  but  they 
can  only  give  true  rest  to  the  soul  when  they  serve  to  bring 
home  to  it  some  great  religious  truth  in  a  beautiful  and  striking 
form.  And  even  the  strictly  moral  man,  who  can  boast  of 
having  kept  all  the  commandments  from  his  youth  upward — 
unless  utterly  deluded  by  self-satisfaction — must  often  feel  that 
he  lacks  something,  the  one  thing  needful. 

Religion,  then,  is  something  in  itself  and  for  itself, 
fulfilling  a  separate  role,  and  not  in  any  way  to  be 
confounded  with  art,  or  philosophy,  or  even  with 
morality. 

3.  But  whatever  may  be  the  true  relation  between 
religion  and  these  departments  of  human  activity, 
there  are  many  who  think  that  religion  has  been  and 
is  the  enemy  of  the  higher  life  as  exhibited  in  art, 
philosophy,  science,  and  morality.  They  will  ask 
you :  Did  not  the  law  of  Moses  prohibit  the  making 
of  any  image  of  anything  in  the  heaven  above,  in 
the  earth  beneath,  or  in  the  water  under  the  earth, 


io       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

and  was  not  the  artist  condemned  by  Israel's  proph- 
ets in  words  most  severe?  Did  not  the  reformers 
destroy  all  that  was  beautiful  in  the  churches,  and 
make  their  worship  something  devoid  of  all  softness 
and  beauty?  Have  not  philosophers  whether  of 
sacred  or  profane  history,  been  treated  in  all  ages,  as 
skeptics  and  mischief-makers  ?  Has  not  the  church 
persecuted  and  even  executed  the  leaders  of  science  ? 
Has  not  morality  lost  ground  whenever  and  wherever 
formal  religion  has  gained  ground?  So  it  is  fre- 
quently maintained;  but  these  statements,  even  if 
admitted  as  facts,  do  not  bring  us  so  easily  to  the 
conclusion  which  is  urged  upon  us.  Certain  dis- 
tinctions should  be  noted. 

There  are  times  when  art  degrades,  and  there 
are  uses  of  art  which  are  always  degrading.  Is  that 
influence  hostile  to  literature  which  would  take  away 
from  it  the  obscene  ?  There  are  professed  scientists 
and  philosophers  who  step  beyond  their  sphere  of 
knowledge,  and  in  arrogant  spirit  make  strange 
statements  concerning  that  with  which  their  science 
has  no  connection.  Is  it  hostile  to  science  to  oppose 
the  presumptuous  denial  of  the  existence  of  God  ? 
There  are  times  when  immorality  becomes  an  epi- 
demic ;  but  is  it  the  truly  religious  man  who  becomes 
immoral,  or  rather  that  man  who  has  merely  put 
on  the  form  of  religion  ?  Is  it  hostile  to  morality  to 
assist  one  who  is  immoral  to  become  pure  ? 

Furthermore,  religion  must  not  be  held  responsible 


RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE        1 1 

for  the  deeds  of  all  who  profess  to  act  in  her  name. 
As  there  is  a  distinction  between  religion  and  the 
church,  so  there  is  a  distinction  between  the  church 
of  today  and  that  of  the  Middle  Ages.  There  may 
be  a  religion,  as  Tiele  says,  "one  of  those  transient 
forms  of  religious  life  which,  having  served  its  time 
and  fallen  into  decay,  cannot  tolerate  those  revela- 
tions of  progress  in  the  spiritual  domain  which  mark 
the  awakening  of  a  new  life."1  Such  a  religion, 
however,  should  not  be  confounded  with  the  normal 
religious  spirit.  Again,  disease  must  always  be 
differentiated  from  health.  It  is  the  sane,  not  the 
insane,  man  who  most  truly  represents  humanity. 
Abnormal  forms  of  religion  have  undoubtedly  an- 
tagonized the  progress  of  truth  and  the  growth  of  the 
higher  life;  but  the  truth  and  the  higher  life  have 
been  all  the  stronger  for  an  opposition  that  was 
ephemeral. 

4.  But  if  religion  does  not  furnish  the  starting- 
point,  is  not  the  origin  of  this  higher  life ;  if  religion 
is  something  quite  independent  of  one  or  all  of  the 
phases  of  this  life ;  and  if  religioa  is  not  the  enemy  of 
art,  science,  philosophy,  and  ethics,  how  shall  the 
relationship  be  designated?  Perhaps  religion  may 
be  called  the  sister;  and,  if  a  sister,  surely  the  oldest 
member  of  the  family.  That  religion  is  a  sister, 
and  not  the  mother,  would  appear  from  certain 
facts  in  the  history  of  art,  literature,  science,  and 

'  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  p.  258. 


iz        RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

ethics.  For  example,  so  far  as  can  be  ascertained, 
art  is  synchronous  with  religion,  while  mythology  is 
not  religion,  nor  does  it  come  from  religion,  but  is 
an  early  form  of  philosophy.  The  priestly  caste  is 
something  comparatively  late,  and  its  mastery  of 
learning  and  law  was  obtained  after  long  struggle. 
In  the  earliest  days  every  man  was  his  own  priest, 
and  there  was  no  such  caste.  Like  a  family  of  lan- 
guages descended  from  a  parent  stem,  among  which 
there  is  an  oldest  and  a  youngest,  with  others  grow- 
ing up  between,  so  religion,  art,  literature,  philosophy, 
ethics,  and  science  are  to  be  regarded  as  closely  akin, 
each  to  the  other. 

But  though  of  a  common  origin,  there  are  im- 
portant points  of  difference  between  religion  and 
these  other  phases  of  the  spiritual  or  higher  life.  It 
has  already  been  said  that  no  other  of  these  phases 
may  take  the  place  of  religion,  since  no  one  of  them 
gives  that  kind  of  satisfaction,  of  peace  of  soul, 
which  is  the  gift  of  religion.  As  has  often  been 
pointed  out,  however,  the  kinship  between  what 
religion  and  these  other  phases  give  is  so  great  as  to 
minimize  their  difference. 

In  the  ethical  life,  as  in  the  religious,  peace  of  mind  is  one 
of  the  objects  sought  for,  and  it  is  only  to  be  found  in  a  state 
of  unceasing  development.  Nor  does  the  man  of  science  rest 
satisfied  with  knowing.  He  desires  also  to  understand,  and 
to  systematize  and  unify  his  knowledge.  The  philosopher 
tries  to  fathom  the  origin  of  things,  but  he  also  expects  that 
philosophy  will  reconcile  him  with  himself  and  the  world.  So 


RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE        13 

that  scientists  and  philosophers  alike,  to  a  certain  extent,  also 
seek  for  contentment  of  soul.  And  does  the  artist  never  aim, 
in  the  pursuit  of  his  art,  at  something  beyond  aesthetic  enjoy- 
ment ?  Does  he  not  often  throw  his  whole  soul  into  his  works, 
and  thus  stake  his  happiness  upon  their  success  ?  * 

The  fact,  after  all,  which  at  the  same  time  marks 
the  relationship  and  the  separation,  which  makes  it 
impossible  for  religion  to  be  taken  as  the  mother,  or 
to  have  one  or  another  of  these  take  her  place,  is 
this:  in  art  the  imagination  and  emotion  predomi- 
nate; in  science,  the  intellect  and  judgment;  in  mor- 
ality, the  will;  while  in  religion  these  various  facul- 
ties must  be  held  in  an  even  balance.  Undue  em- 
phasis on  any  one  or  another  results  in  an  abnormal 
and  degenerate  form,  such  as  mysticism,  or  fanati- 
cism, or  moralism.  Religion,  many-sided,  and  well- 
rounded,  is  broader  than  any  of  its  sister-forms  of 
spirituality.  It  calls  into  exercise  a  man's  whole 
being;  and  when  its  development  is  normal,  it 
strengthens  every  function  of  his  life. 

All  this,  we  can  see,  is  equivalent  to  saying  that 
hi  working  for  the  highest  and  fullest  and  truest 
development  one  must  not  ignore  religion.  The 
artist  cannot  be  a  scientist  and  thus  strengthen  his 
intellect  and  judgment;  he  would  only  destroy  his 
power  as  an  artist;  but  he  may  cultivate  the  frame 
of  mind  which  constitutes  religion,  and  in  this  way 
obtain  something  of  which  he  stands  much  in  need. 
The  scientist  may  not  become  an  artist,  and  thus 

*  C.  P.  TIELE,  op.  dt.,  Vol.  II,  p.  246. 


i4       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

find  opportunity  for  the  play  of  his  imagination  and 
his  emotions  (we  remember  the  experience  of 
Darwin  with  music).  Yet  in  religion  he  may  find 
that  which  will  remove  the  charge  that  is  made  and 
sustained  against  so  large  a  portion  of  the  scientific 
fraternity,  the  charge  of  narrowness,  of  lack  of 
interest  in  humanity,  of  dogmatic  and  arrogant 
conceit.  The  moralist,  furthermore,  cannot  become 
religious  by  receiving  a  touch  of  emotion,  for  religion 
demands  more  than  the  exercise  of  will  and  of 
imagination.  It  requires  also  the  strong  and  con- 
stant cultivation  of  the  judgment. 

Art,  then,  if  it  will,  may  find  in  religion  its  closest 
friend  and  neighbor,  for  there  can  be  no  religion 
without  sentiment,  the  essential  element  in  art. 
Has  this  not  appeared  in  the  history  of  art?  To 
what  has  she  more  frequently  turned,  with  what 
has  she  been  more  closely  united  in  all  her  history 
than  with  religion — in  poetry,  in  architecture,  in 
painting,  in  sculpture,  and  in  music?  Science  and 
philosophy,  too,  if  they  will,  may  find  in  religion 
their  closest  friend  and  neighbor.  It  is  true  that  a 
religion  which  lacks  the  intellectual  energy  which 
enters  into  philosophy  and  science  may  be  tainted 
with  superstition  or  mysticism  or  fanaticism,  still  it 
cannot  be  true  religion.  And  have  not  philosophy 
and  science  always  been  driven,  in  their  last  analysis, 
to  God  ?  And  belief  in  God  is  the  very  essence  of 
religion.  Ethics,  surely,  will  find  in  religion  a  sym- 


RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE        15 

pathetic  companion,  for  there  has  never  existed  a 
religion  which  did  not,  in  forms  more  or  less  crude, 
try  to  influence  its  votaries  to  live  purer  lives.  Have 
not  preachers  and  religious  sages,  from  the  times  of 
earliest  history,  striven  with  their  followers  to  be 
truthful  and  honest  and  pure?  Can  we  not  see, 
therefore,  that  since  religion  has  something  in  com- 
mon with  each  of  these  other  phases  of  the  higher 
life,  and  since  religion  in  each  case  furnishes  some- 
thing which  these  others  lack,  religion  is  essential  to 
their  full  fruitage? 

It  may  be  well  to  note  briefly,  in  conclusion,  some 
of  the  characteristics  of  the  religion  which  is  best 
adapted  to  the  needs  of  those  whose  lives  and  sym- 
pathies are  in  harmony  with  the  higher  life.  Here 
we  must  speak  of  a  religion  as  distinct  from  religion, 
for  nothing  is  clearer  than  that  there  are  as  many 
different  religions  in  the  world  at  large,  and  even 
among  those  immediately  about  us,  as  there  are  dif- 
ferent tastes  and  sympathies.  These  differences  are 
not  merely  differences  of  creed,  nor  of  forms  of  wor- 
ship, but  of  standards  of  morality,  of  external  ac- 
companiments, and  of  subjective  ideals.  The  reli- 
gion of  an  artist  will  be  different,  no  doubt,  from 
that  of  a  scientist,  and  that  of  a  scientist  from  that  of 
a  moralist ;  yet  there  must  be  some  things  in  common 
between  the  religion  of  a  man  who  is  spiritually 
inclined  and  that  of  a  man  whose  mental  faculties  are 
exercised  only  slightly  or  not  at  all.  One  need  but 


16       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

read  history  to  learn  that  the  leaders  of  the  world's 
thought,  the  men  who,  in  one  capacity  or  another, 
have  made  the  highest  contributions  to  the  higher 
life,  have  for  the  most  part  been  men  of  strong  reli- 
gious character. 

We  may  ask,  therefore:  What  has  been  the 
nature  of  this  religion  ?  What  is  the  nature  of  the 
religion  which  today  will  prove  acceptable  to  men 
and  women  of  higher  thought? 

a)  This  religion  will  be  simple  in  its  nature. 
Truth  is  always  simple;  never  complex  or  com- 
pound. The  greatest  teachers  have  thus  presented 
it.  It  was  Amos  who  said:  "Hate  the  evil,  and 
love  the  good,  and  establish  judgment  in  the  gate." 
(Amos  5: 15 a.)  Another  prophet  said:  "He  hath 
showed  thee,  O  man,  what  is  good;  and  what  doth 
Jehovah  require  of  thee  but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love 
kindness,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God?" 
(Micah6:8.)  It  was  Jesus  who  said :  "Verily  I  say 
unto  you,  whosoever  shall  not  receive  the  kingdom 
of  God  as  a  little  child,  he  shall  in  no  wise  enter 
therein."  (Mark  10:15.) 

In  respect  of  simplicity,  then,  religion  is  "like  a 
work  of  art,  a  picture,  a  symphony,  a  cathedral. 
Its  genius  does  not  forbid  ornament  and  variety. 
But  its  greatness  is  in  its  grand,  simple,  and  total 
effect,  toward  which  all  ornamentation  contributes."1 
Simplicity  need  not  shut  out  aesthetic  form;  indeed 

1  DOLE,  The  Religion  of  a  Gentleman. 


RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE        17 

it  must  not,  for  otherwise  many  of  those  for  whom 
it  has  a  mission  will  ignore  it. 

b)  It  will  be  reasonable;  else  the  scientist  and 
the  philosopher  will  reject  it;  that  is,  it  must  stand 
the  test  of  investigation.     It  must  make  no  false  and 
pretentious  claims.     It  must  make  no  unreasonable 
demands  upon  the  weak  credulity  of  man.     It  must 
appeal  to  the  judgment  and  the  reason,  in  order 
that  those  of  aesthetic  predilections  may  find  in  it 
what  they  do  not  find  in  their  special  field. 

c)  It  must  be  a  religion  of  toleration.     One's 
neighbor   must   be    allowed   to   differ.     No   single 
religion,  not  to  speak  of  a  phase  of  religion,  can  be 
regarded  as  the  only  one  containing  religious  truth 
or  affording  religious  help.     There  must  be  whole- 
some  respect  for  the   sincere   adherents  of  other 
faiths,  even  though  they  be  far  removed.     Religious 
expression  must  be  regarded  to  some  extent,  per- 
haps to  a  large  extent,  as  the  product  of  historical 
circumstance,  of  geographical  situation,  of  heredi- 
tary transmission. 

d)  It  will  be  a  religion  characterized  by  idealism ; 
for  otherwise  those  inclined  toward  the  artistic  could 
not  endure  it.     Think  of  a  religion  devoid  of  poetry 
and  music;  a  religion  with  no  prophetic  vision;  a 
religion  with  no  reaching  out  toward  the  invisible  and 
the  infinite !    There  can  be  no  place  for  such  a  reli- 
gion in  the  minds  of  those  spiritually  inclined. 

e)  It  will  be  an  ethical  religion  in  order  to  meet 


1 8        RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

the  demands  of  the  moralist  and  the  needs  of  the 
artist;  and  in  order  that  it  may  be  capable  of  inciting 
to  righteousness  the  lives  of  those  who  accept  it. 
"Let  judgment  roll  down  as  water  and  righteousness 
as  a  mighty  stream."  For  righteousness  the  cry  goes 
up  on  every  side,  and  nowhere  more  loudly  or  more 
continuously  than  from  among  those  whose  lives 
have  been  molded  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  college 
and  the  university.  It  was  the  ethical  side  of  proph- 
etism  that  made  it  mighty  in  its  influence,  though 
it  was  handicapped  in  so  many  ways. 

/)  It  will  be  a  religion  capable  of  affording  com- 
fort in  the  time  of  trouble,  consolation  in  the  hour 
of  distress;  for  this  is  what  neither  art,  nor  science, 
nor  philosophy,  nor  ethics  can  do ;  and  this,  after  all, 
is  the  greatest  demand  of  the  human  soul  when  it 
becomes  fully  aware  of  its  utter  weakness.  There 
are  seasons  (who  has  not  experienced  them?)  when 
life  has  nothing  to  offer  that  will  please  the  human 
soul.  Torn  and  bleeding,  as  it  were,  healing  is 
needed;  but  the  power  of  healing  has  been  given 
only  to  religion;  and  without  religion  there  is  no 
health,  no  whole  condition. 

I  wish,  finally,  to  say  three  things,  the  truth  of 
which  I  am  persuaded  you  will  more  and  more 
appreciate  as  you  go  forward  in  the  higher  life. 

i.  Religion  has  much  to  do  with  the  higher  life; 
much  to  offer  those  who  are  spiritually  minded.  It 
is  an  essential  factor  in  a  fully  developed,  well- 


RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE        19 

rounded  life.  Without  it  you  lack  that  which 
would  give  you  breadth  and  strength  and  vigor;  calm- 
ness and  tenderness  and  peace. 

2.  It  is  worth  your  while  carefully  to  consider 
the  kind  of  religion,  the  particular  form  of  religious 
culture,  which  you  will  cherish.     It  is  no  longer  a 
question  of  creeds  or  denominations.     The  dividing 
line  runs,  not  between  this  and  that  form  of  religious 
faith,  but  through  all  forms.     The  name  is  insig- 
nificant; the  serious  thing  is  the  character  of  your 
religion.     Is  it  adapted  to  your  needs,  and  is  it  lifting 
you  upward?  or  is  it  something  foreign  to  your 
nature  and  is  it  dragging  you  down  ?    Is  your  reli- 
gion a  source  of  anxiety  and  pain  ?  or  does  it  bring 
rest  and  peace  of  mind  ?    If  it  is  not  what  it  ought 
to  be,  do  not  be  satisfied  until  it  has  been  set  aright; 
for  every  individual  must  have  his  own  religion,  and 
that  of  no  other  will  answer  his  purpose. 

3.  The   religion  of  Jesus   Christ   is   a  religion 
capable  of  adjustment  to  any  and  every  individual, 
however  peculiar  his  temperament,  however  exact- 
ing his  demands.     Its  simplicity,  as  the  Master  him- 
self presented  it,  is  marvelous.     In  its  proper  form 
it  has  always  stood  the  most  rigid  tests;  and  it 
appeals  as  strongly  to  the  reason  as  to  the  heart.     It 
will  permit  you  to  respect  your  friend's  religion;  if 
he  is  a  Jew,  because  it  came  out  of  Judaism;  if  a 
sincere  follower  of  Islam,  because  much  of  Islam 
came  from  it;  if  a  disciple  of  some  eastern  faith, 


20       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

because  its  founder,  Jesus,  was  broad-minded  and 
tender,  and  saw  truth  wherever  truth  existed,  with- 
out reference  to  the  name  it  bore.  It  is  a  religion  of 
ideals,  not  weird  and  fanciful;  but  chastened,  strong, 
and  inspiring  to  true  service.  It  is  ethical  in  a 
sense  peculiar  to  itself,  for  it  is  the  religion  of  the 
Beatitudes  and  the  Golden  Rule.  It  is  a  religion 
that  says:  "Come  unto  me  all  ye  that  labor  and  are 
heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest." 

The  greatest  minds  of  nineteen  centuries  have 
found  this  religion  helpful.  I  do  not  urge  upon  you 
any  special  form  of  this  religion,  for  I  have  in  mind 
its  very  essence,  that  which  is  common  to  all  forms, 
that  which  makes  it  the  power  history  shows  it  to 
have  been  through  all  these  centuries.  This,  as 
found  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  is,  in  the  words  of 
old  Hebrew  philosophy,  the  fear  of  the  Lord — i.  e., 
belief  in  and  acceptance  of  One  who  has  power  to 
help,  even  to  the  uttermost.  This  step,  this  posi- 
tion, this  opening  of  the  mind  and  heart  to  an  in- 
fluence of  the  highest  spiritual  character,  will  prove 
to  be  the  beginning,  and  indeed,  the  chief  part,  of 
that  higher  life  which  lies  before  you,  that  higher  life 
upon  which  you  have  already  entered,  and  in  which, 
we  trust,  your  walk  will  continue,  until  there  comes 
the  next  step  forward — the  step  that  will  usher  you 
into  the  life  still  higher,  the  highest  life — the  life 
beyond. 


n 

THE  RELIGIOUS  SPIRIT 

THE  religious  side  of  man's  nature  will  always 
furnish  new  and  fresh  material  for  study.  Every 
manifestation  of  the  religious  spirit,  whether  in  the 
individual  or  in  the  nation,  deserves  careful  exam- 
ination and  consideration;  and  these  manifestations 
are  as  numerous  and  as  varied  as  are  the  individuals 
and  the  nations  in  which  they  appear.  It  may  be 
said,  with  truth,  that  there  is  a  religious  spirit  for 
every  individual,  and,  in  a  slightly  different  sense,  a 
religious  spirit  for  every  closely  connected  group  of 
individuals. 

The  differences  which  may  be  noted  are  so  strik- 
ing and  so  bewildering  in  our  contemplation  of  them 
that  one  may  fairly  question  the  propriety  of  using 
such  a  term  as  "the  religious  spirit."  Is  it  possible, 
for  instance,  that  the  degrading,  licentious,  and  cruel 
religious  rites  of  one  nation,  and  the  elevating,  puri- 
fying, and  ennobling  practices  of  another,  are  mani- 
festations of  the  same  spirit  ? z  May  we  suppose  that 
the  man  who,  so  far  as  concerns  religion,  seems  cold 

1  Contrast,  for  example,  the  base  and  sensual  conceptions 
associated  with  the  ceremony  of  circumcision  among  other  nations 
with  the  holy  and  spiritual  thought  connected  with  that  rite 
among  the  Hebrews. 


22        RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

and  indifferent  and  unaggressive,  has  in  him  any  of 
the  spirit  which  makes  his  neighbor  warm,  enthusi- 
astic, and  zealous  ?  But  more  than  this  is  true :  the 
religious  spirit  in  individual  and  in  nation  is  always 
changing.  The  spirit  of  the  child  is  not  that  of  the 
mature  man,  and  the  latter,  in  turn,  differs  from 
that  of  the  man  of  old  age.  The  same  man  exhibit- 
ing the  spirit  in  one  form,  in  this  environment,  will, 
if  suddenly  transferred  to  other  surroundings,  make 
a  quite  different  manifestation. 

Nothing  in  history  is  more  significant  than  the 
changes  through  which  a  nation  passes,  in  the  course 
of  several  centuries,  in  respect  to  the  outward  form 
and  the  inward  content  of  its  religious  faith.  Trace 
the  history  of  the  Hebrew  nation  from  the  primitive 
and  simple  ritual  of  early  times,  to  the  highly  devel- 
oped and  complicated  service  of  the  second  temple. 
Study  the  strange,  almost  incredible,  movements  in 
the  history  of  Christianity  itself;  the  peculiar,  almost 
endless,  variety  in  forms  of  worship  and  belief, 
which  characterize  the  different  bodies  of  Christians 
today;  and  there  will  be  found  full  illustration  of 
what  has  been  said. 

There  are  three  elements  which  enter  into  the 
religious  spirit,  and  which  may  be  said  to  constitute 
it.  The  presence  of  these  three  elements,  in  varying 
proportions,  determines  largely  the  nature  of  the 
religious  spirit  in  any  particular  case.  The  first  of 
these  elements  may  be  expressed  in  the  single  term 


THE  RELIGIOUS  SPIRIT  23 

"worship."  This  term  means  here  the  attitude  of 
an  individual,  or  a  group  of  individuals,  toward  the 
outside  and  higher  world  of  supernatural  or  divine 
existence.  It  includes  the  outward  acts  which  in 
various  forms  symbolize  the  inward  thought.  In 
some  cases  so  simple  and  unconventional  is  it  as  to 
pass  almost  unnoticed.  In  other  cases  it  is  so  elab- 
orate and  complex  in  its  various  forms  and  mani- 
festations as  to  win  our  aesthetic  admiration,  though 
at  the  same  time  suggesting  the  query  as  to  whether 
the  participant,  in  the  maze  of  outward  ceremony, 
may  not  lose  sight  of  the  essence  which  the  particular 
act  is  intended  to  represent. 

I  have  just  said  that  this  element,  called  worship, 
includes  the  outward  acts  which  in  various  forms 
symbolize  the  inward  thought.  Now  one  may  ask: 
Does  the  thought  precede  the  act  and  determine  it, 
or  does  the  act  waken  the  thought  which  it  is  sup- 
posed to  represent  ?  At  different  times  and  under 
different  circumstances  each  of  these  things  happens. 
We  must  suppose  that  in  the  institution  of  any  par- 
ticular form  or  act  in  a  ritual  of  worship,  whether 
simple  or  elaborate,  the  intention  and  effort  were  to 
embody  in  a  tangible  form  some  conception  sug- 
gested by  the  religious  spirit;  and  that  in  the  mind 
of  individuals  possessing  a  sensitive  temperament, 
and  controlled  by  the  same  general  influences,  the 
performance  of  the  act  would  later  produce  that 
phase  of  feeling,  or  reflect  that  phase  of  thought, 


24       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

which  originally  suggested,  whether  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  the  institution  of  the  ceremony. 

But  how  easy  and  how  natural  it  is  for  the  act  to 
lose  its  significance  after  a  long  period  of  time  has 
passed,  or  when  the  ceremony  is  performed  in  situa- 
tions entirely  distinct  from  that  with  which  it  was 
first  connected !  In  the  history  of  religion  one  finds 
multitudes  of  these  institutional  ruins.  Our  modern 
religious  life  abounds  in  rites  and  ceremonies  which 
no  longer  express  the  thought  originally  intended  for 
expression,  and  in  the  performance  of  which  we  who 
take  part  are  perhaps  in  many  cases  only  performing 
a  farce.  They  do  not  reflect  our  spirit;  they  do  not, 
as  they  are  performed,  create  in  our  hearts  a  corre- 
sponding emotion.  These  observances,  unless  per- 
formed with  the  right  spirit,  are  a  mockery,  and  we 
who  perform  them  are  little  better  than  hypocrites. 
They  constitute,  however,  the  conventionalities  of 
religion,  and  we  are  under  the  same  obligations  to 
observe  the  conventionalities  of  religion  as  to  observe 
the  conventionalities  of  social  life.  To  violate  these 
conventionalities  is,  in  the  opinion  of  many,  to  strike 
a  fatal  blow  at  religion  itself.  This  of  course,  is  a 
mistake  in  so  far  as  the  violation  is  a  violation  only  of 
conventionality.  But  we  ought  gravely  to  consider 
just  where  the  line  may  be  drawn  between  what  shall 
be  called  conventionality,  and  the  real  expression  of 
our  inner  self  in  its  relation  to  God. 

The  second  element  which  enters  into  and  con- 


THE  RELIGIOUS  SPIRIT  25 

stitutes  the  religious  spirit  is  the  element  of  belief  or 
faith.  This  is  never  quite  independent  of  the  first 
element.  Thus,  in  most  cases,  it  determines  sooner 
or  later,  the  form  of  worship.  In  this  second  ele- 
ment there  is  again  at  times  the  same  simplicity  and 
the  same  elaborateness  which,  in  different  instances, 
characterize  worship.  A  simple  faith  or  belief, 
however,  is  by  no  means  always  found  with  a  simple 
form  of  worship ;  and  a  complicated  ceremonial  does 
not  necessarily  presuppose,  on  the  part  of  the  ordinary 
worshiper,  a  more  fully  developed  theological  system. 
In  respect  to  the  exercise  of  belief,  the  individual  has, 
of  course,  a  larger  freedom  than  is  possible  in  the 
exercise  of  worship.  It  is  necessary  in  the  economy 
of  life  that  men  unite  in  forms  of  worship.  It  is  not 
necessary  that  any  two  men  should  think  alike. 
The  desire  for  system  and  co-ordination,  and  the 
influence  of  the  ceremonial,  have  led,  in  the  course 
of  our  ecclesiastical  history,  to  the  separation  into 
distinct  bodies  of  those  whose  beliefs  were  similar; 
for  the  opinion  has  generally  prevailed  that,  in  order 
to  work  together  in  the  religious  field,  men  must 
have  the  same  theological  beliefs,  and  must  exercise 
the  same  forms  of  worship. 

But  the  experience  of  most  recent  years  shows  us 
that  this  opinion  was  wrong,  and  in  the  future  the 
tendency  in  the  direction  of  union  of  effort  on  the 
part  of  those  holding  different  theological  views  and 
practicing  different  forms  of  worship  may  surely  be 


26       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

expected  to  increase.  No  one,  moreover,  can  fail  to 
recognize  the  fact  that  in  these  separate  bodies, 
whose  separation  from  each  other  was  effected  in 
order  to  bind  those  who  held  the  same  views  more 
closely  together,  there  is  coming  to  exist  the  widest  pos- 
sible divergence  of  opinion  on  many  questions  which 
have  been  regarded  as  of  paramount  importance. 
The  third  element  which,  together  with  worship 
and  theological  belief,  enters  into  the  religious  spirit, 
is  the  ethical  standard  of  a  man's  life — one's  con- 
duct in  relation  to  himself  and  to  his  fellow-men. 
This  element  may  not  be  entirely  separated  from 
either  of  the  other  two.  The  effect  upon  conduct  of 
the  other  two  elements  of  the  religious  spirit  is 
marked.  Thus  the  form  of  worship  may  be  the 
strongest  possible  incentive  toward  either  right  living 
or  wrong  living.  One's  belief,  however,  may  exert 
an  even  stronger  influence  upon  conduct  than  one's 
ritual.  Nothing  is  easier  to  understand  than  the 
sensuality  of  many  ancient  nations  when  we  recall 
that  their  conception  of  God  was  best  represented 
by  the  bull,  the  animal  representation  of  sexual 
reproduction.  Character,  it  must  be  conceded,  is 
largely  determined  by  belief.  The  hue  and  cry  so 
common  today  against  creeds  can  be  justified  only 
on  the  ground  that  it  is  directed  against  the  effort  to 
compel  men  to  accept  some  form  of  belief,  or  to 
accept  all  the  details  of  any  so-called  system  of 
belief,  which,  it  is  thought,  must  be  accepted  or 


THE  RELIGIOUS  SPIRIT  27 

rejected  as  a  whole.  From  any  other  point  of  view 
this  hostility  to  creeds  must  be  judged  puerile,  for 
where  is  the  man  who  does  not  believe  something, 
and  does  not  therefore  have  a  creed?  It  is  to  be 
noted,  however,  that  the  element  of  belief  does  not 
now  occupy  the  same  position  that  it  once  did.  A 
man's  life,  at  least  in  civilized  countries,  is  not 
dependent  upon  his  theological  belief,  as  it  once  was. 
His  position  in  a  particular  body  of  the  Christian 
faith  is  not  so  definitely  determined.  The  range 
within  which  he  may  exercise  his  belief,  without 
injury  to  his  influence  and  without  the  necessary 
change  of  ecclesiastical  standing,  is  constantly  widen- 
ing. In  other  words,  the  present  is  an  age  of  tolera- 
tion, with  which  no  past  age  of  history  may  be  com- 
pared. Though  at  first  it  may  seem  paradoxical, 
it  is  true  that  in  proportion  as  less  emphasis  is  placed 
upon  a  particular  form  of  belief,  greater  emphasis  is 
laid  upon  conduct.  In  proportion  as  larger  liberty 
of  thought,  within  reasonable  limits,  prevails,  ethical 
standards  are  elevated. 

These  then,  briefly  described,  are  the  three  ele- 
ments which  enter  into  the  religious  life  and  deter- 
mine the  religious  spirit.  Every  true  manifestation 
of  this  spirit  will  include  all  three  of  these  elements, 
and  the  character  of  every  such  manifestation  will  be 
determined  by  the  proportion  in  which  the  three  ele- 
ments are  combined. 

May  I  now,  before  making  a  personal  application 


28       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

of  what  has  been  said,  dwell  for  a  moment  upon  two 
points  bearing  directly  upon  our  subject? 

The  history  of  religion  furnishes  us  some  inter- 
esting facts  touching  the  mutual  relationship  of  these 
three  elements  in  the  progress  of  their  development. 
In  the  ancient  religions  only  the  element  of  worship 
existed.  There  was  no  dogma.  The  rite,  as 
Robertson  Smith  has  pointed  out,  was  connected 
with  a  myth,  but,  "strictly  speaking,  this  mythology 
was  not  an  essential  part  of  ancient  religion,  for  it 
had  no  sacred  sanction,  and  no  binding  force  on  the 
worshipers."  There  may  have  been  several  accounts 
of  the  origin  of  a  given  ceremony.  It  made  no  dif- 
ference what  the  worshiper  believed  in  reference  to 
the  ceremony,  if  only  he  performed  it  regularly  and 
accurately.  He  did  not  understand  that  any 
special  favor  was  to  be  obtained  from  the  gods  by 
believing  this  or  that  thing.  As  a  recent  writer  has 
said,  "what  was  obligatory  or  meritorious  was  the 
exact  performance  of  sacred  acts  prescribed  by 
religious  tradition."  In  these  ancient  religions,  of 
course,  the  ethical  standard  was  very  low.  The 
religious  spirit,  therefore,  found  its  manifestation 
almost  exclusively  in  the  acts  of  ritual  service.  At 
a  later  period  the  element  of  faith  or  belief  was 
introduced.  Few  of  us  appreciate  the  fact  that  this 
element  entered  the  history  of  religion  very  late. 
It  is  largely  the  controversies  between  the  various 
divisions  of  the  Christian  church  that  have  led  us  to 


THE  RELIGIOUS  SPIRIT  29 

think  that  in  the  history  of  religion  dogma  or  belief 
has  been  prominent.  The  controversy  in  reference 
to  the  ritual  in  the  Christian  church  has  been,  after 
all,  a  controversy  in  reference  to  belief,  for  it  is  only 
the  interpretation  of  the  ritual  that  has  been  thought 
important.  It  was  when  the  prophets  of  the  Old 
Testament  began  to  preach  one  God  as  against  many 
gods  that  religion,  as  we  are  acquainted  with  it,  first 
really  emphasized  belief.  The  denunciations  of  the 
prophets  were  directed  for  the  most  part,  it  will  be 
remembered,  against  the  formality  and  hypocrisy  of 
the  Israelitish  worship.  It  is  also  true  that  in  the 
Old  Testament  religion  the  standard  of  right  living 
was  at  first  very  low,  and  although  it  was  lifted 
higher  and  higher  through  the  centuries,  it  never 
reached  a  plane  which,  from  the  modern  point  of 
view,  could  be  called  a  high  one.  Briefly,  then,  the 
religious  spirit  of  the  Old  Testament  shows  itself 
most  largely  in  the  act  of  worship.  The  Levitical 
service  occupied  the  largest  share  in  the  attention 
of  the  people.  Then  in  the  work  of  the  prophets  the 
elements  of  belief  and  right  living  were  introduced 
and  inculcated.  In  the  later  days  the  sages,  who 
held  a  broader  point  of  view  than  that  of  the  prophets, 
gave  practically  all  of  their  thought,  as  religious 
teachers,  to  ethics,  and,  while  not  ignoring  the  ele- 
ment of  belief,  found  little  or  no  use  for  the  element 
of  worship.  The  historical  development  of  these 
three  elements  in  Israel's  history  is  essentially  their 
history  everywhere. 


30       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

The  second  point  may  be  briefly  stated.  We 
notice  in  individual  and  in  ecclesiastical  life  here 
and  there  abnormal  manifestations  of  the  religious 
spirit.  In  some  of  these  the  spirit  is  so  strong  as  to 
overthrow  the  judgment,  and,  indeed,  at  times  to 
dethrone  reason.  At  others  it  has  associated  itself 
with  immorality  of  the  grossest  type,  and  indescrib- 
able cruelties.  Of  all  wars,  religious  wars  have  been 
the  most  dreadful;  of  all  controversies,  theological 
controversies  have  been  the  most  implacable.  We 
have  often  been  at  a  loss  to  understand  why,  in  the 
case  of  men  whose  hearts  were  right  with  God,  there 
could  be  standards  of  life  so  utterly  degraded;  or 
why,  in  the  case  of  men  whose  lives  were  pure  and 
upright,  there  should  be  an  utter  disregard  of  church, 
and  of  church  relationship.  The  explanation  of 
these  anomalies  and  abnormalities  will  be  found  in 
the  historical  background  of  the  nation,  or  in  the 
psychological  constitution  of  the  individual.  This  we 
may  never  be  able  to  understand,  but  the  character  of 
their  manifestation  is  clear.  In  each  case  one  ele- 
ment of  the  religious  spirit  has  been  emphasized 
unduly,  and  the  others  neglected  or  ignored.  Each 
case  presents  a  one-sided  development.  The  nation 
and  the  individual  has  acted  or  lived  at  times  with- 
out heart,  again  without  mind,  still  again  without 
heart  or  mind.  This  being  true,  ought  we  to  be 
surprised  at  the  result  ? 

We  may  now  return  to  the  personal  application 
of  what  has  been  said. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  SPIRIT  31 

The  cultivation  of  this  religious  spirit  is  for  us 
as  serious  an  obligation  as  the  cultivation  of  the  body 
or  the  mind;  for  without  this  spirit,  our  life  is  as 
deficient  as  would  be  our  body  if  it  had  no  heart,  our 
mind  if  there  were  no  brain.  Rule  out  of  life  this 
element,  described  under  the  word  "worship,"  the 
great  truths  for  which  religion  in  the  highest  sense 
stands,  and  the  principles  of  conduct  of  which  religion 
is  in  the  highest  sense  today  an  advocate — rule  these 
elements  out  of  life,  ignore  them  all  or  any  of  them, 
and  you  are  not  a  man  or  woman  in  the  full  sense 
intended  by  your  Creator. 

Granting  now  that  you,  the  individual,  feel  the 
force  of  the  obligation  to  cultivate  this  spirit,  how 
can  it  best  be  done  ?  Many  and  long  answers  have 
been  made  to  this  question,  but  mine  shall  be  short 
and  simple.  Accept  this  unique,  wonderful  character, 
Jesus  Christ,  as  your  leader  and  guide  in  the  work  of 
developing  in  yourself  the  qualities  which  he  pos- 
sessed. In  any  other  kind  of  work  you  would  go 
for  direction  to  that  person  within  your  reach  who 
in  himself  and  in  his  own  actions  best  represented 
the  thing  which  you  were  seeking.  For  be  assured 
that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  best  representative  of  this 
religious  spirit,  and,  likewise,  that  he  is  within  your 
reach,  within  the  reach  of  everyone  who  will  stretch 
his  hands  out  after  him.  Accept  him,  if  you  have 
not  already  done  so,  and  try  him.  If  when  honest 
and  sincere  effort  has  been  made,  you  find  him  lack- 


32        RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

ing  in  the  qualities  of  a  good  guide,  you  may  recon- 
sider your  step;  but  first  and  foremost  give  him  a 
trial.  You  surely  need  guidance.  To  whom  else 
will  you  go  ? 

If,  now,  you  have  accepted  him,  study  his  life  as 
it  is  narrated  to  us,  and  his  teachings  concerning 
God.  The  Christian  world  has  been  trying  to  be 
Christian  without  a  true  or  full  conception  of  the 
Christ  himself.  Indeed,  Christianity  had  almost 
forgotten  that  there  was  a  Christ,  or,  perhaps  more 
accurately,  had  so  changed  him  that  he  could  no 
longer  be  recognized  as  Christ.  It  has  been  the 
glory  of  more  recent  thought  that  it  has  in  some 
measure  restored  the  Christ  who  had  been  forgotten 
or  ignored.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  each  indi- 
vidual must  perform  for  himself  this  work  of  restora- 
tion; and  it  can  be  accomplished  only  by  constant 
and  close  study  of  his  words  and  works. 

And  to  this  end  you  must  study  yourself.  In 
which  of  these  three  elements  are  you  most  deficient — 
worship,  belief,  or  conduct?  In  your  secular  life 
you  have  ascertained  that  your  taste  and  talent  lie 
in  a  particular  direction — business,  politics,  perhaps 
science  or  literature.  When  this  tendency  was 
definitely  discovered,  you  undertook  to  cultivate  the 
special  line  for  which  your  ability  seemed  adapted. 
This  was  right,  but  in  the  cultivation  of  the  religious 
spirit  the  opposite  policy  is  to  be  adopted.  We 
want  no  specialists  in  the  manifestation  of  the  reli- 


THE  RELIGIOUS  SPIRIT  33 

gious  spirit.  It  is  the  all-round,  the  symmetrically 
developed,  religious  character  that  you  should  work 
for.  The  day  of  special  priesthood  is  past — every- 
one must  be  his  own  priest ;  the  day  of  special  proph- 
etism  is  past — everyone  must  be  a  prophet;  the 
day  of  specialism  in  morality  has  never  existed  and 
will  never  come.  If  then  you  find  yourself  espe- 
cially weak  in  one  or  another  of  the  elements  which 
we  have  considered,  cultivate  that  element  in  par- 
ticular, remembering  that  the  bigots  of  religious 
history  have  been  the  specialists  in  the  manifesta- 
tion of  the  religious  spirit;  that  the  dark  ages  of 
Christianity  have  been  those  in  which  the  church 
has  emphasized  one  or  two  of  these  elements  to  the 
neglect  of  others. 

I  desire  to  say  a  word,  in  conclusion,  in  regard 
to  the  religious  spirit  as  manifested  in  university  life. 
Here  are  special  difficulties.  By  nature  we  each 
represent  different  tendencies;  this  is  true  of  any 
group  of  individuals.  In  the  university  we  come, 
each  from  different  communities  and  environments; 
we  represent  many  phases  of  belief  and  unbelief; 
and,  besides,  we  have  a  greater  or  less  variety  of 
opinions,  forms  of  worship,  and  religious  activity. 
And,  in  addition  to  all  this,  we  are,  for  the  most 
part,  so  busily  occupied  in  our  daily  work,  in  our 
several  occupations,  that  there  seems  to  remain  little 
time  for  the  cultivation  of  the  religious  spirit.  Our 
minds  are  engaged  in  adjusting  themselves  to  new  sur- 


34       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

roundings,  and  there  is  a  confusion  of  ideas  and' 
interests  in  connection  with  which,  and  as  a  result 
of  which,  we  suffer  the  religious  life  to  be  pushed 
aside. 

And  just  as  there  rests  upon  each  of  us  as  an  in- 
dividual the  obligation  to  cultivate  the  religious 
spirit,  there  rests  also  upon  us  as  a  university  the 
obligation  to  cultivate  the  religious  spirit.  This 
may  not  be  done  in  any  such  manner  as  to  interfere 
with  our  separate  individualism;  and  it  is  extremely 
difficult  to  find  in  such  multiformity  of  belief  and 
unbelief,  of  practice  and  non-practice,  any  unity. 
But  unity  must  be  found ;  for  an  institution  of  learn- 
ing which  does  not  possess  a  strongly  pronounced 
religious  spirit  of  some  kind  may  do  as  much  harm  as 
good.  How  shall  this  be  cultivated?  My  answer 
here  must  be  still  briefer  than  to  the  former  questions. 

As  individuals,  first  of  all,  we  must  do  our  work. 
The  whole  cannot  be  what  the  parts  are  not.  Each 
individual  should,  therefore,  recognize  his  responsi- 
bility for  the  whole,  and  for  the  sake  of  the  university, 
as  well  as  for  himself,  make  urgent  effort.  And 
then  we  must  assist  each  other,  and  in  so  doing 
bring  ourselves  more  closely  together.  Common 
sympathy  alone  produces  unity.  We  may  surely 
find,  as  the  days  and  years  pass  on,  a  more  and  more 
satisfactory  way  in  which,  with  zest  and  profit,  we 
may  express  our  feelings  of  gratitude  and  rever- 
ence to  the  Power  above  and  around  us,  to  whom 


THE  RELIGIOUS  SPIRIT  35 

we  are  indebted  for  all  that  we  have  and  are.  We 
may  surely  agree,  not  only  to  permit,  but  indeed  to 
encourage,  the  widest  possible  divergence  of  thought 
and  belief  within  reasonable  limits;  and  such  diver- 
gence should  serve,  not  as  a  mark  of  separation,  but 
rather  as  the  token  of  that  freedom  which  alone  is 
found  in  Jesus  the  Christ.  We  may  join  in  a  com- 
mon effort  to  elevate  the  life  of  the  community,  the 
state,  and  the  nation;  the  effort  to  establish  right- 
eousness and  truth  on  every  side.  Such  efforts  serve 
not  merely  as  an  expression  of  the  religious  spirit, 
but  they  serve  also  to  tie  more  closely  the  bonds  of 
those  who  thus  work  together,  and  to  make  that  work 
stronger  and  more  lasting.  As  with  individuals,  so 
with  universities:  the  full  religious  spirit  finds  ex- 
pression in  maintaining  a  true  worship,  in  cultivating 
a  reverence  for  truth,  and  in  putting  forth  strong 
effort  for  the  upbuilding  of  humanity. 


m 

FELLOWSHIP  AND  ITS  OBLIGATION- 
SERVICE 

THE  worlds  we  live  in  grow  in  number  and  in 
size  as  life  proceeds.  Each  stage  onward  reveals  a 
new  world  to  us;  and  the  strange  thing  is  that  as 
from  time  to  time  we  enter  into  these  new  worlds, 
we  still  remain  dwellers  in  those  into  which  we  had 
before  gained  entrance,  each  being  superadded  to 
another,  until  at  last  all  are  included  in  the  world 
beyond.  Each  stage  onward  also  reveals  to  us  in 
these  worlds  heights  and  depths  of  which  before  we 
had  no  idea — heights  and  depths  of  pleasure  and 
pain,  of  love  and  hate,  of  faithfulness  and  unfaith- 
fulness, experiences  so  varied  and  so  vital  as  to  excite 
surprise  that  humanity  can  pass  through  even  one 
of  them  and  live. 

The  worlds  we  live  in  grow  in  number  and  in  size 
as  life  proceeds: 

First  came  that  inner  and  most  sacred  world,  the 
family,  into  which  we  were  ushered  without  re- 
sponsibility of  our  own,  and  in  which  we  found  our- 
selves the  object  of  attention  and  love  on  every  side. 
In  this  world,  with  its  almost  infinite  detail  of  rela- 
tionship and  with  its  utter  lack  of  selfishness,  we 

36 


FELLOWSHIP  AND  ITS  OBLIGATION      37 

have  gone  on  living,  and  with  each  year  of  life  its  mys- 
teries have  become  more  marked,  its  responsibilities 
more  heavy,  its  points  of  contact  more  numerous 
and  complex.  In  this  world  the  tie  that  binds  us 
to  our  fellow-members  is  the  tie  of  blood.  This 
bond,  however,  sometimes  does  not  count  for  much, 
for  when  time  and  space  intervene,  even  the  parent 
may  forget  the  child,  or  the  child  the  parent.  This 
bond  does  grow  stronger  and  stronger  with  the  close 
associations  which  the  family  life  makes  possible; 
for  it  is  a  natural  bond,  and  one  which  is  strength- 
ened by  cultivation.  Or  it  may  be  broken  off  at 
will;  family  feuds  are  often  the  bitterest.  But,  after 
all,  even  when  the  bond  seems  broken,  it  is  there; 
perhaps  only  a  thread  remains  still  connecting  those 
whom  God  and  nature  intended  should  be  bound. 
This  world  one  enters  without  responsibility  of  his 
own;  and  he  may  not  really  abandon  it,  even  if  he 
will  to  do  so. 

Life  does  not  go  far  before  another  world  opens 
its  portals.  It  soon  appears  that  fellowship  is  pos- 
sible with  those  outside  the  family  circle — a  fellow- 
ship pure  and  simple,  in  which  blood-kinship  plays 
no  part;  a  fellowship  in  some  cases  restricted  in  the 
number  of  those  among  whom  it  exists,  in  others 
not  so  restricted;  but  in  all  cases  maintained  within 
a  limit  hardly  larger  than  that  of  the  family.  This 
relationship  we  ordinarily  call  friendship.  We  are 
accustomed  to  say  that  we  choose  our  friends;  that, 


38        RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

in  other  words,  we  enter  this  world  upon  our  own 
responsibility.  This,  if  true  at  all,  is  only  true  in 
part.  We  enter  into  the  friendships  of  life,  whether 
in  youth  or  in  age,  because  of  something  in  our 
friend  which  appeals  to  us,  something  which  we  can- 
not resist;  because  of  an  affinity  which  is  as  real, 
though  not  as  tangible  perhaps,  as  the  tie  of  blood. 
The  bond  of  friendship  is  a  spiritual  one;  and  so 
close  is  it  that  men  will  sometimes  do  for  friends 
what  they  would  not  do  for  blood-brothers.  In  this 
circle  changes  occur;  friendships  sometimes  are  'out- 
grown. Yet,  as  time  goes  on,  it  generally  proves 
true  that  the  bond  of  fellowship  once  formed  may 
not  be  broken,  and  in  the  later  days  of  life,  as  one's 
mind  goes  back  to  the  days  of  early  family  experi- 
ences, these  may  not  be  separated  from  others  in 
which  the  friends  of  youth  had  part. 

Most  of  us  have  enjoyed  the  fellowship  of  another 
world — the  university.  In  entering  this  world  each 
individual  assumes  for  himself  responsibility;  but 
this  world,  like  the  others  to  which  reference  has 
been  made,  is  one  from  which  no  man  withdraws 
who  has  once  entered  it.  The  fellowship  here  pos- 
sesses elements  which  would  seem  to  have  been 
drawn,  some  from  the  family,  some  from  the  sphere 
of  friendship.  The  relationship  of  teacher  and  pupil, 
when  rightly  apprehended,  is  only  less  sacred  and 
only  less  helpful  than  that  of  parent  and  child.  In 
some  sense,  indeed,  it  is  a  substitution  for  that  rela- 


FELLOWSHIP  AND  ITS  OBLIGATION      39 

tionship.  The  relationship  between  student  and 
student  is  at  once  that  of  brother  and  sister  and 
that  of  friend;  the  friendships  formed  in  college  life 
are  usually  the  warmest  and  the  most  lasting  of  all. 
The  associations  of  college  life  are  often  as  hallowed 
as  any  that  man  makes. 

The  college  world  and  its  significance  cannot  be 
appreciatied  by  those  who  have  not  lived  in  it,  and 
those  who  have  lived  in  it  will  never  clearly  know 
how  different  their  lives  would  have  been  if  they 
had  never  entered.  The  college  world  is  a  kind  of 
epitome  of  the  great  world.  With  its  temptations 
and  struggles,  with  its  successes  and  failures,  with 
its  ambitions  and  despairs,  its  life  is  hardly  to  be 
distinguished  from  the  life  of  the  great  world.  It 
is  the  natural  transition  between  the  narrow  life  of 
the  family  and  the  world  at  large.  It  exhibits  the 
world  at  large  in  its  varied  relationships,  and  shows 
how  and  when  entrance  to  it  may  be  gained  most 
advantageously. 

There  is,  however,  another  world,  of  which  every 
man  is  a  member,  and  in  which  every  man  must 
live.  There  may  be  a  few  who  have  not  known 
life  in  the  world  of  family;  there  may  be  a  few  who 
have  not  tasted  the  experience  of  that  spiritual  life 
called  friendship;  the  many  do  not  know  the  college 
world.  But  there  is  no  man  who,  soon  or  late,  does 
not  enter  into  the  life  of  the  great  world — the  world 
at  large.  What  then,  is  the  relationship  between 


40       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

the  members  of  this  world  ?  Are  men  of  human- 
kind all  brothers?  Is  there,  indeed,  a  kinship  of 
every  man  with  every  other  man? 

The  Scripture  statement  as  to  the  essential  unity 
of  mankind  appears  to  be  corroborated  by  modern 
science  in  every  department  in  which  the  subject 
has  been  investigated.  The  biologist  tells  us  that 
we  are  one  in  structure;  the  physiologist  tells  us 
that  we  are  one  in  functional  arrangement;  the  phi- 
lologist tells  us  that  our  languages  may  be  carried 
back  to  stems  which  themselves  form  families,  and 
between  these  families  there  is  evidence  of  relation- 
ship; the  psychologist  tells  us  that  we  are  so  con- 
stituted that  under  the  same  circumstances  and  in 
the  same  environment  we  will  do  in  large  measure  the 
same  thing,  whatever  be  the  country  of  which  we 
are  citizens.  The  fact  of  the  relationship  seems  to 
have  been  clearly  established,  and  is  the  basis  for 
the  changes  which  are  now  being  made  throughout 
our  social  structure. 

It  follows,  of  course,  that  wherever  relationship 
is  found,  there  will  be  found  fellowship;  and  there 
exists,  therefore,  a  world-fellowship,  as  well  as  a 
family  fellowship,  or  the  fellowship  of  friends. 
This  world-fellowship  manifests  itself  in  various 
ways.  With  some  we  are  brought  into  direct  touch, 
with  others  the  contact  is  indirect.  In  the  mass  of 
individuals  each  individual  of  the  mass  may  touch 
comparatively  few.  The  relationship  may  be  that 


FELLOWSHIP  AND  ITS  OBLIGATION      41 

of  business,  or  of  religion,  or  of  a  civic  or  social  char- 
acter; but  whatever  the  specific  form  it  may  assume, 
it  is  of  such  a  nature  as  to  illustrate  the  common 
sympathy  of  men — the  common  fellowship  which  is 
always  possible  and  which  expresses  itself  whenever 
circumstances  permit.  Every  man  is  of  kin  to  every 
other  man,  and  the  multiform  fellowships  of  life  are 
but  an  exhibition  of  the  fellowship  which  exists 
between  members  of  the  human  race — a  fellowship 
which  justifies  the  phrase  "our  common  humanity." 
This  fellowship  is,  from  one  point  of  view,  only  the 
extension  of  the  family  fellowship,  for  here  as  there 
the  bond  is  that  of  common  blood.  From  another 
point  of  view  it  is  the  enlargement  of  that  fellowship 
which  is  seen  in  the  close  association  of  a  group  of 
friends,  or  an  enlargement  of  that  life  of  which  so 
perfect  a  type  is  seen  in  the  university.  The  bond 
is  that  of  common  interest  or  sympathy — a  bond 
which  may  be  stronger  even  than  blood. 

And  into  this  great  world,  as  I  have  said,  every 
man  soon  or  late  comes.  It  is  here  that,  notwith- 
standing family  ties  and  bonds  of  friendship,  a  man 
must  form  new  relationships,  and  upon  the  char- 
acter of  these  will  depend  his  career.  This  world 
includes  many  worlds  besides  those  which  I  have 
mentioned,  each  sufficient  in  itself  to  limit  the  life 
and  the  influences  of  any  individual.  In  taking 
one's  position  in  this  world,  he  does  not  give  up  his 
position  in  the  other  worlds  to  which  reference  has 


42        RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

been  made,  and  sometimes  membership  in  worlds 
so  different  from  each  other  and  so  much  in  conflict, 
makes  life  and  living  all  the  more  complex  and 
difficult.  Do  we  hesitate  sometimes  to  enter  ?  Yes, 
but  this  counts  for  nothing;  for,  whether  we  will  or 
not,  we  find  ourselves  numbered  with  the  great 
throng  and  treated  on  every  side  as  members.  May 
we  then,  having  entered,  withdraw  quietly  to  one 
side  and  give  ourselves  no  concern  over  the  affairs 
of  the  world  at  large  ?  If  we  are  cowards,  we  may 
surely  do  this;  but  the  training  and  the  blood  of 
many  men  render  cowardice  for  them  impossible. 
It  only  remains,  therefore,  to  take  up  the  burden  of 
this  life  and  carry  it  as  best  we  can.  And  the  burden, 
as  we  carry  it,  will  grow  heavier  and  heavier,  until 
perhaps  we  sink  crushed  by  its  overwhelming  weight. 
But  this  matters  little,  for  we  may  interpret  it  as 
perhaps  the  true  glory  granted  by  the  world  to  its 
favored  children. 

In  this  world-fellowship  the  college  man  has  a 
place.  Others  may  be  cowards  and  shirk  responsi- 
bility. Disturbed  by  the  conflict  which  rages  every- 
where so  continuously;  distressed  by  the  misery 
which  cries  out  to  heaven  from  every  quarter;  con- 
fused by  the  various  sounds  and  noises  which  fill 
the  air  on  every  side,  many  may  selfishly  shut  out 
the  world,  and  live  for  and  by  themselves,  with  eye 
and  ear  closed  to  all  that  goes  on  about  them.  And 
many  live  thus.  But  of  this  many  the  college  man 


FELLOWSHIP  AND  ITS  OBLIGATION      43 

may  not  be  one,  unless,  to  be  sure,  his  college  life 
is  to  count  for  nothing. 

His  position  is  like  that  of  a  man  going  through 
the  world  the  second  time.  As  we  look  back  over 
life,  we  think — in  fact,  we  know — that  in  many  ways 
we  would  have  acted  differently.  We  see  now  what 
at  the  time  of  action  was  entirely  obscure.  We  appre- 
ciate the  mistakes  and  blunders  that  were  made,  and 
understand  how  they  might  have  been  avoided. 
The  experience  of  the  college  man  in  later  life  is 
something  like  this.  He  has  lived  one  life.  When 
he  enters  into  the  world  at  large,  he  is  beginning  life 
a  second  time,  and  has  before  his  eyes  its  probabili- 
ties, or  at  all  events  its  possibilities.  Such  a  man 
sustains  a  peculiar  relation  to  the  world  and  must 
occupy  a  peculiar  place  in  its  fellowship.  He  it  is 
who  must,  in  some  measure,  occupy  the  place  of 
the  parent  in  the  family,  of  the  instructor  in  the 
university. 

We  may  stop  here  to  ask:  Why  is  it  that  the 
parent  is  fitted  to  guide  and  direct  the  life  of  the 
child  through  its  early  periods?  Because  the  par- 
ent has  passed  through  this  period,  and  by  experience 
has  learned  the  dangers  and  difficulties  which  beset 
childhood.  Why  is  it  that  the  instructor  is  fitted  to 
guide  and  direct  the  work  of  the  pupil  through  the 
various  stages  of  his  educational  development  or 
in  special  fields  of  research  ?  Because  the  instructor 
has  himself  gone  through  this  work  and  profited  by 


44       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

its  experiences;  has  gone  over  the  ground  of  the 
special  department.  Just  so,  the  college  man,  in 
general  has  been  fitted  by  the  life  which  he  has  lived 
(if  it  has  been  lived  properly)  to  assist  those  about 
him — because,  while  they,  for  the  most  part,  are 
going  through  the  world  for  the  first  time,  he  is 
living  through  it  a  second  time.  This,  then,  is  his 
position  and  the  relationship  which  he  sustains. 
Or,  to  use  another  analogy,  he  is  an  elder  brother 
in  the  family;  not  elder,  perhaps,  in  years,  but  in 
experience;  for  experience  comes  not  merely  with 
days  of  life,  but  with  days  of  thought  and  action. 
Each  year  of  preparatory  and  college  life  contains 
five  years  of  ordinary,  routine  life.  The  student  of 
twenty  is,  therefore,  not  a  man  of  twelve  plus  eight, 
but  of  twelve  plus  forty.  I  do  not  forget  that  occa- 
sionally there  are  those  who  in  life  outside  the  college 
find  a  discipline  and  a  training  which  contains  many, 
if  not  all,  of  the  elements  of  college  training.  These 
are  the  exception.  Nor  do  I  forget  that  frequently 
there  are  those  who  have  passed  through  the  college 
without  having  lived  the  college  life,  and  who,  there- 
fore, enter  upon  the  life  of  the  world  as  if  living  for 
the  first  time.  These,  although  many,  are,  I  trust, 
the  exception. 

If,  then,  the  college  man's  position  in  the  world 
is  that  of  one  about  to  live  a  second  life  or  that  of 
an  elder  brother,  what  is  his  responsibility,  his  obli- 
gation? There  is,  of  course,  the  responsibility 


FELLOWSHIP  AND  ITS  OBLIGATION      45 

which  attaches  to  membership  in  the  human  family, 
the  responsibility  of  fellowship,  of  man  to  man,  of 
brother  to  brother — the  responsibility  which  rests  on 
every  man,  which  all  men  bear  in  common.  I  shall 
not  here  attempt  to  define  this. 

But  there  is  also  the  responsibility  which  rests 
upon  the  elder  brother,  or  the  leader;  there  are  also 
the  responsibility  and  obligation  which  rest  upon 
those  who  have  been  permitted  to  receive  special 
gifts  and  to  enjoy  special  advantages.  And  just 
here,  as  it  seems  to  me,  lies  the  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem which  today  is  disturbing  the  minds  of  so  many. 
Granting  that  the  world's  affairs  are  under  the  general 
guidance  of  an  all-wise  and  omnipotent  God — a 
God  who  is  at  the  same  time  just  and  impartial — 
why  is  it  that  upon  some  men  greater  gifts  are  be- 
stowed than  upon  others?  Why  is  it  that  to  this 
man  wealth  is  given,  and  to  that  man  high  position  ? 
Why  is  it  that  you  have  been  permitted  to  enjoy  the 
advantages  of  college  life  ?  Why  are  men  of  wealth 
placed  in  a  class  by  themselves,  and  not  infrequently 
looked  upon  with  reproach  simply  because  they  are 
wealthy  ?  Men  who  have  had  college  training  are 
sometimes  in  similar  fashion  regarded  with  sus- 
picion merely  because  they  have  something  which 
the  mass  of  men  do  not  possess.  Why,  I  ask,  do 
a  certain  few  have  gifts  which  the  masses  do  not 
have  ?  Before  answering  the  question,  let  me  make 
this  suggestion : 


46       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

Life  for  these  few  is  no  easier,  on  the  whole,  than 
for  the  many.  In  fact,  it  is  more  difficult  and 
more  hazardous.  In  the  majority  of  cases,  the  men 
and  women  who  occupy  high  positions,  and  who 
have  had  the  advantage  of  education,  are  carrying 
burdens  to  which  the  men  of  lower  rank  are  utter 
strangers;  burdens  heavier  and  more  grievous  even 
than  those  brought  by  poverty  and  sickness.  Pain 
of  body  is  not  so  great  as  pain  of  heart  and  mind. 
With  every  increase  of  knowledge  there  is  an  increase 
of  the  capacity  for  sorrow.  To  the  unthinking  mind 
the  man  of  wealth,  living  in  his  mansion,  is  an  object 
of  envy.  If  the  real  facts  were  known,  the  life  of 
such  a  one  would  be  found,  in  most  cases,  to  be  a 
life  of  care  and  responsibility,  for  which  the  satisfac- 
tion of  physical  life  is  no  fair  remuneration.  To  the 
unthinking  mind  the  man  who  occupies  a  high  posi- 
tion in  the  affairs  of  government,  or  in  affairs  of 
business,  is  an  object  of  congratulation  and  some- 
times of  envy.  If  the  real  facts  were  known,  in 
almost  every  case  it  would  be  found  that  such  a  man 
is  being  crushed — literally  crushed — by  the  weight 
of  the  burdens  which  he  is  compelled  to  carry.  He 
may  find  satisfaction  in  the  prominence  which  is 
accredited  him,  but  such  satisfaction  is  not  a  sufficient 
reward  for  the  anguish  of  mind  and  heart  he  is 
called  upon  to  suffer. 

Again,  therefore,  the  question  comes:  Why  is  it 
that  to  some  are  given  what  seem  to  be  special  gifts 


FELLOWSHIP  AND  ITS  OBLIGATION      47 

and  special  advantages?  Because  they  deserve 
them  ?  No !  In  order  that,  having  them,  they  may 
secure  a  greater  measure  of  enjoyment  in  life  ?  This 
may  sometimes  be  the  result,  it  is  not  the  purpose; 
and  even  when  such  enjoyment  comes,  there  come 
also  with  it  a  burden  and  responsibility  which  in 
large  measure  often  counterbalance  the  enjoyment. 
Is  it  because  these  men  have  greater  energy  and 
ability?  This  answer  merely  begs  the  question. 
Why  is  it  then,  that  they  have  been  given  the  ability 
to  acquire  wealth  or  to  secure  an  education  ?  The 
answer  is  that  every  such  gift  or  opportunity  placed 
within  the  reach  of  an  individual  is  his,  not  for  per- 
sonal advantage,  but  to  be  used  by  him  for  the  ad- 
vantage of  others.  Every  individual  to  whom  has 
been  given  such  gift  or  opportunity,  if  he  is  true  to 
himself  and  true  to  the  world-fellowship  of  which 
he  is  a  part,  will  use  the  gift  or  the  opportunity,  not 
for  himself,  but  for  those  with  whom  he  is  associated ; 
and  in  every  such  case  the  burdens  which  he  assumes 
and  the  weight  of  responsibilities  which  he  carries, 
the  suffering  of  mind  and  heart  which  is  imposed 
upon  him,  will  counterbalance  all  satisfaction  that 
comes  to  him  from  the  enjoyment  of  these  privi- 
leges; and  the  God  who  has  thus  distributed  his 
gifts  will  in  the  end  be  found  to  have  been  just  and 
impartial.  For  if  he  has  given  to  this  man  a  special 
gift,  it  has  not  been  for  that  man's  pleasure  or  ad- 
vantage. It  has  been  given  that  he  might  help  his 


48        RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

brother — that  humanity  might  be  lifted  higher;  and 
if  the  man  has  been  equal  to  the  trust  committed, 
his  life  will  have  been  no  less  hard  and  difficult 
than  that  of  the  men  whom  he  has  helped.  Do 
you  say  that  many  who  have  received  these  gifts  are 
faithless  to  the  trust  committed,  and  receive  the 
benefits  without  incurring  the  responsibilities  and 
the  pains?  Well,  this  is  in  accordance  with  the 
nature  of  things.  In  order  that  man  may  be  good, 
there  must  be  an  opportunity  to  sin.  In  order  that 
there  may  be  men  who  will  accept  this  trust,  and 
the  obligations  which  it  imposes,  there  must  be  the 
opportunity  to  prove  recreant  to  the  trust.  Vice  is 
permitted  to  exist  for  the  sake  of  virtue — for  without 
one  the  other  could  not  be. 

The  obligation  which  rests  upon  the  college  man 
is,  therefore,  one  of  service — service  to  his  fellow- 
men.  The  man  of  wealth  who  does  not  use  the 
wealth  given  to  him  for  the  benefit  of  humanity  is 
a  curse  to  the  world  of  which  he  is  a  member.  The 
college  man  who  does  not  use  the  advantages  gained 
by  a  college  experience  for  the  help  of  those  about 
him  is  a  curse  to  humanity.  To  help  humanity  is 
to  serve  humanity — to  be  a  servant — to  enter  service. 
An  obligation  which  rests  upon  you,  my  friends,  in 
part  because  you  may  not  deny  your  relationship  to 
every  member  of  the  human  family  with  whom  you 
come  in  contact;  in  part  because  of  the  very  consti- 
tution of  your  mind  and  body  which  brings  you  into 


FELLOWSHIP  AND  ITS  OBLIGATION      49 

close  relationship  with  others  of  the  human  family; 
but  especially  because  you  have  been  accorded 
privileges  not  ordinarily  enjoyed  by  the  members 
of  the  human  family.  If  in  your  home  you  are  given 
wealth  or  advantage  of  any  kind,  would  you  not 
share  it  with  the  other  members  of  the  family? 
The  principle  is  the  same.  The  obligation  is  the 
same.  Advantage  has  been  given  you,  not  because 
you  deserve  it,  not  because  you  are  better  than  many 
another  man  or  woman,  but  in  order  that,  having 
received  this  advantage,  you  may  thereby  be  better 
fitted  to  serve  your  fellow-men. 

I  would  have  every  college  man  and  woman  ac- 
knowledge, as  most  other  men  and  women  cannot, 
the  obligation  which  is  imposed  by  the  fellowship  of 
humanity.  This  obligation  can  be  acknowledged  by 
the  college  man  better  than  by  any  other,  because 
he  appreciates  it  more  fully;  his  eyes  have  been 
opened  to  see  it  more  clearly  in  all  its  bearings. 

I  would  have  every  college  man  and  woman 
assume  the  special  obligation  imposed  by  member- 
ship in  the  human  family  upon  those  of  its  members 
who  have  had  special  advantages,  such  as  you  have 
enjoyed.  In  the  ordinary  obligation,  that  which 
rests  upon  all,  there  is  something  of  service;  the 
special  obligation,  which  rests  upon  the  few — those 
who  have  had  advantage  of  one  kind  or  another — 
is  wholly  one  of  service:  a  service  hard  and  rigorous; 
a  service  continuous  and  never  ending;  a  service 


50       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

which  will  require  you,  in  one  form  or  other,  to  give 
to  others  everything  that  has  been  given  to  you;  a 
service  the  pain  of  whose  performance  will  equal 
any  satisfaction  or  pleasure  which  you  may  derive 
from  the  enjoyment  of  the  advantage  accorded. 

This  service  will  be  toward  your  equals,  those 
blessed  with  as  great  advantages  as  yourself.  These 
will  need  your  help  for  themselves;  for  where  you 
are  strong  they  may  be  weak;  and  in  this  respect 
they  will  require  your  aid.  For  your  own  sake 
you  will  serve  them  also ;  since  where  they  are  strong 
you  may  be  weak;  and  the  joint  service  thus 
secured  will  uplift  you  both.  Many  a  strong  man 
has  fallen  because  of  a  weakness  which  was  not 
soon  enough  discovered  by  himself  or  by  his 
friends.  Many  a  strong  cause  has  perished  for  the 
lack  of  timely  service  at  the  hands  of  those  who 
might  have  warded  off  disaster.  Too  often  we  for- 
get the  duty  we  owe  to  those  in  our  own  station  of 
life — our  duty  to  those  engaged  in  the  same  occupa- 
tion with  ourselves.  Even  when  the  thought  of  serv- 
ice is  in  our  minds,  and  the  desire  to  render  service 
has  taken  possession  of  our  hearts,  we  ignore  the 
fundamental  principle  that  service  rendered  the 
strong,  when  it  is  needed,  is  of  more  value  than 
service  rendered  the  weak.  Why  is  it  so  ?  Because 
the  strong,  when  strengthened  and  kept  strong,  may 
in  turn  help  others;  whereas  the  weak,  if  only 
slightly  strengthened,  are  still  unable  to  render  much 
assistance. 


FELLOWSHIP  AND  ITS  OBLIGATION      51 

It  will  also  be  well  for  you,  my  college  friends,  to 
keep  in  mind  the  fact  that  your  equals  will  not  all 
be  found  in  the  ranks  of  college  men  and  women. 
Some  of  your  brothers  and  sisters,  better  gifted  by 
nature  in  some  directions  than  yourselves,  have  in 
large  measure  accomplished  without  the  aid  of  col- 
lege what  you  have  done  with  the  aid  of  college. 
These  individuals  would  tell  you  that  what  they 
have  gained  has  cost  them  far  more  than  you  have 
paid  for  your  advantage.  They  will  tell  you  that, 
if  it  were  to  be  done  over  again,  they  would  adopt 
your  plan;  they  would  go  through  the  college  life. 
But,  however  true  this  is,  be  on  the  lookout  for 
such ;  recognize  them  at  their  true  worth ;  join  hands 
with  them  in  every  good  work.  They  are  of  the 
college  fellowship,  though  they  have  not  seen  the 
college.  They  are  your  equals,  and  upon  them  rests 
the  obligation  which  rests  on  you. 

Is  this  service  due  those  who  are,  as  we  say, 
above  you — those  who  have  had  even  greater  ad- 
vantages than  yourselves?  The  man  who  cannot 
serve  another  well  cannot  himself  be  leader.  Wher- 
ever you  may  be,  or  in  whatever  station,  there  will 
be  those  above  you  who  both  need  and  deserve  your 
hearty  service.  They  will  stand  in  need  of  it  in 
order  that  by  your  service,  organized  with  that  of 
others,  great  results  may  be  accomplished.  It  is, 
after  all,  united  service  that  counts.  There  cannot 
be  union  of  service  without  grading  of  service  as 


52        RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

higher  and  lower.  This  is  the  point  I  have  in  mind. 
Do  not  be  chary  about  doing  the  lower  service  when- 
ever it  is  needed  and  you  can  do  it.  Most  of  us 
find  life  occupied  largely  in  performing  the  lower 
service.  The  amount  of  this  kind  of  service  is 
relatively  very  large.  The  real  fact  is  that  in  service 
one  always  takes  the  lower  place.  If  the  truth  were 
told,  those  who  hold  the  highest  positions  are,  in 
proportion  to  the  honor  of  the  position,  performing 
the  lowest  service.  This  service,  as  has  been  said, 
will  be  needed.  In  most  cases  it  will  be  deserved, 
because,  upon  close  investigation  it  will  be  seen 
that  they  are  serving  you. 

Surely,  then,  these  higher  ones  deserve  your  serv- 
ice. If  they  are  true  to  the  high  position  which  they 
occupy,  they  will  be  using  every  gift  or  advantage 
of  wealth  or  power  or  endowment  to  serve  you  and 
those  who,  like  you,  need  help.  The  case  will  be 
entirely  different  if  they  are  recreant  to  their  trust. 
In  my  experience,  I  have  found  none  so  eager  for 
help  and  aid  as  those  who  were  commonly  supposed 
to  have  been  raised  by  their  wealth  or  position  be- 
yond all  need  of  help.  It  is  here  that  gratitude  finds 
the  possibility  of  expression.  Those  who  serve  us 
deserve  in  turn  our  service,  and  there  is  no  sin  that 
may  be  committed  which  is  so  black  as  the  sin  of 
ingratitude.  Remember,  therefore,  that  your  educa- 
tion obligates  you  to  serve  those  who  by  directing 
you  and  your  work  can  at  the  same  time  help  you 


FELLOWSHIP  AND  ITS  OBLIGATION      53 

and  benefit  humanity  at  large.  The  world  today 
needs  more  of  the  spirit  of  voluntary  sacrifice  and 
less  of  that  spirit,  called  independence,  which  is  in 
essence  real  selfishness. 

I  have  one  thing  more  to  say — perhaps  the  most 
important.  The  service  expected  of  you  will  be,  in 
large  measure,  service  for  those  who,  as  the  world 
reckons  them,  are  below  you.  I  cannot  myself 
think  that  the  world's  reckoning  is  correct.  There 
is  no  real  sense  in  which  they  are  below  you.  The 
world,  as  it  is  constituted,  has  not  been  able  to  fur- 
nish them  the  opportunity  which  it  has  given  you — 
that  is  all.  I  am  optimist  enough  to  believe  that 
in  the  end  it  will  be  shown  that  the  laws  which 
regulate  the  universe  have  been  the  best  which 
could  be  devised  under  all  circumstances  to  attain 
the  highest  and  greatest  results.  These  laws  being 
what  they  are,  millions  of  people  are  unable  or  un- 
willing to  obtain  the  advantages  which  you  have 
gained.  This  places  upon  you  an  obligation  to 
render  an  account  for  what  has  been  entrusted  to 
you;  the  account  will  be  given  to  humanity  at  large, 
and  the  masses  of  humanity  at  large  belong  to  those 
who,  as  I  have  said,  have  been  reckoned  as  below 
you. 

When  we  compare  the  situation  of  the  masses 
today  with  that  of  a  hundred  years  ago,  or  five  hun- 
dred years  ago,  or  a  thousand  or  five  thousand  years 
ago,  we  see,  as  clearly  as  we  see  the  light  of  the  sun, 


54       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

that  progress  is  being  made,  but  we  feel  that  it  is 
not  being  made  rapidly  enough;  and  it  is  equally 
clear  that  the  progress  would  be  greater  if  the  men 
who  have  been  given  a  mission  for  humanity — I 
mean  by  that  the  men  who  have  been  given  the 
advantages  of  wealth  or  knowledge — would  in  every 
case  perform  their  whole  duty.  It  is  not  for  me  to 
indicate  how  this  service  for  the  poor  and  needy 
shall  be  performed.  There  are  a  thousand  methods, 
any  one  of  which  you  may  adopt.  The  question 
that  concerns  us  at  this  time  is:  Have  you — along 
with  the  preparation  for  service — the  spirit  of 
service  ? 

If  in  your  college  work  you  gain  the  preparation, 
and  do  not  acquire  the  spirit,  your  life  will  be  an 
injury  to  the  world,  and  not  a  benefit.  You  will 
retard  the  onward  movement,  instead  of  assisting 
it.  This  is  why  progress  is  so  slow.  So  many  who 
have  been  given  opportunity  to  serve  and  benefit 
humanity  have  used  the  preparation  given  them, 
and  the  facilities  placed  within  their  grasp,  to  do 
injury.  Has  the  spirit  of  service  been  inculcated 
by  those  who  have  instructed  you  ?  If  not,  it 
would  be  better  for  the  world  if  those  instructors 
had  not  lived.  This,  of  all  questions,  is  the  one 
question.  It  matters  not  how  much  knowledge 
you  acquire;  since  the  amount,  however  great,  is 
as  nothing  compared  with  what  you  have  not  learned. 
It  matters  not  how  little  knowledge  you  have  ac- 


FELLOWSHIP  AND  ITS  OBLIGATION      55 

quired;  for  the  amount,  however  little,  will  be  great 
in  comparison  with  that  of  the  tens  of  thousands 
with  whom  you  will  be  associated.  The  question 
is:  Have  you  acquired  the  spirit  which  will  lead 
you  to  use  your  energy  and  ability  in  the  interests 
of  those  who  have  been  less  favored  than  yourself  ? 
And  this  service,  as  I  take  it,  is  the  real  essence, 
not  only  of  true  manhood,  but  of  divinity  itself. 
We  no  longer  think  of  God  as  a  taskmaster,  seated 
on  a  throne,  imposing  tasks  upon  a  burdened  people. 
This  conception  is  a  thing  of  the  past.  We  now 
think  of  him  as  actually  existing  in  every  human 
being,  and  as  working  out  through  man  in  all  the 
multiformity  of  man's  activity.  God  himself  is  the 
great  servant  of  humanity;  and  in  the  ideal  man, 
Jesus,  this  spirit  of  service  found  its  highest  example. 
The  question  is:  Will  you  permit  the  great  servant 
of  humanity,  by  whatever  name  you  call  him,  to 
work  in  you  and  through  you  for  the  improvement  of 
humanity?  Will  you  consecrate  your  body,  your 
mind,  and  your  heart  to  the  cause  of  humanity? 
Or  will  you  be  a  miser,  and,  like  the  rich  man  who 
gathers  wealth  for  its  own  sake,  or  for  his  own  self- 
gratification,  use  your  wealth — that  is,  your  training 
and  knowledge — for  selfish  ends,  and  thus  become 
something  to  be  despised  and  spurned  and  cursed  ? 
It  cannot  be:  it  has  not  been;  college  men  and 
women,  throughout  the  world,  stand  for  the  spirit 
and  for  the  work  of  service  in  behalf  of  all  who  need, 


56        RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

and  for  service  in  every  cause  in  which  service  may 
legitimately  be  rendered. 

It  is  the  prayer  of  the  University  with  which  your 
lot  has  been  cast,  and  with  the  name  and  work  of 
which  your  name  and  work  will  always  be  associated, 
that  this  spirit — the  spirit  of  University  life  through 
the  ten  centuries  since  universities  began,  the  spirit 
of  the  true  church,  in  whatever  form  the  church 
through  all  ages  has  exhibited  itself,  the  spirit  of 
the  Divinity  existing  in  all  and  working  through  all — 
it  is  our  prayer  that  this  spirit  may  be  your  spirit  in 
the  years  and  in  the  days  and  in  the  very  moments 
of  your  life,  however  or  wherever  you  may  live  it. 


IV 
TRIALS  OF  LIFE 

SOME  of  us  this  afternoon  are  wondering  what  is 
ahead.  Is  it  success  or  disappointment?  Is  it 
happiness  or  suffering? 

That  each  member  of  the  University  shall  achieve 
a  marked  success  in  life  is  the  University's  expecta- 
tion. That  to  each  member  there  may  come  many 
days  and  many  years  of  unmingled  happiness  and 
prosperity  is  the  University's  hope.  The  chances 
for  success  and  happiness  are  greater  surely  than 
they  would  have  been  without  the  discipline  and 
knowledge  gained  in  years  of  university  residence. 
Life  ought  to  be  a  better  life  in  proportion  as  fit 
preparation  has  been  made;  otherwise  all  prepara- 
tion would  be  a  waste.  If  "a  sound  mind  in  a 
sound  body  is  the  best  description  of  a  happy  state 
in  the  world,"  those  who  have  made  earnest  effort 
to  train  the  mind  and  body  have  in  this  effort  made 
long  strides  toward  happiness.  If  "to  be  strong  is 
to  be  happy,"  happiness  is  more  likely  to  become 
the  possession  of  those  who  have  cultivated  the 
methods  that  produce  strength.  If  we  believe  that 

"True  happiness  never  entered  at  an  eye, 
True  happiness  resides  in  things  unseen," 

we  should  expect  that  those  who  have  learned  to 

57 


58        RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

think  of  the  spiritual  in  contrast  with  the  material, 
of  that  which  is  eternal  instead  of  that  which  is 
transient,  of  that  which  is  holiest  of  all  things — 
truth  in  whatever  form  it  may  clothe  itself — we 
should,  I  say,  expect  these  to  be  happy.  God  is 
generally  on  the  side  of  the  large  battalions. 

But  every  life  cannot  be  successful  in  the  same 
way,  or  to  the  same  extent;  and  to  every  life  there 
will  come  hours  of  disappointment  and  days  of 
suffering.  Many  times  the  man  who,  as  the  world 
thinks,  has  achieved  great  success  will  feel  with 
Macbeth  that  "the  wine  of  life  is  drawn  and  the 
mere  lees  is  left  this  vault  to  brag  of."  Indeed,  even 
in  the  most  successful  life  every  day  will  contain  a 
record  of  suffering.  There  is  no  life,  there  is  no 
kind  of  life,  there  is  no  form  of  life,  which  escapes; 
for  suffering  is  universal.  There  is  suffering  most 
intense  among  the  plants  in  the  "green  sward  beneath 
our  feet,"  for  here  a  never-ending  struggle  goes  on 
in  which  the  weaker  suffer  until  there  comes  entire 
extermination.  The  trees  of  the  forest  about  us  are 
engaged  in  a  similar  daily  struggle,  and  the  history 
of  the  centuries  shows  a  work  of  ruin  and  devasta- 
tion almost  indescribable;  the  suffering  among  ani- 
mal life  multiplies  in  intensity  in  proportion  to  the 
complexity  of  that  life. 

It  is,  however,  among  human  beings  that  suffer- 
ing shows  itself  keenest  and  most  poignant.  Wher- 
ever we  look,  our  eyes  see  pain  and  labor,  sorrow 


TRIALS  OF  LIFE  59 

and  disappointment,  sickness  and  death.  The 
world's  traditions,  rightly  or  wrongly,  point  back  to 
a  time  of  innocence  and  freedom  from  suffering. 
Each  tradition,  however,  tells  a  story  of  a  change, 
and  testifies  to  the  universality,  to  the  absolute  cer- 
tainty, of  trouble  and  sorrow  in  every  life.  There 
are  times  in  every  man's  life  when,  as  he  regards  the 
world,  it  seems  to  be  as  a  "great  battlefield  heaped 
with  the  slain,  an  inferno  of  infinite  suffering,  a 
slaughter-house  resounding  with  the  cries  of  a  cease- 
less agony."  x  There  are  times  also  when  his  heart 
is  filled  with  despair;  when  so  thick  a  darkness  en- 
velops him  that  not  even  the  midday  sun  may  pierce 
it.  This  is  everywhere,  and  will  come  sooner  or 
later  in  every  experience.  At  times  it  will  be  some- 
thing which  one  must  carry  quite  alone.  The  soul 
has  sinned,  and  "sin  let  loose  speaks  punishment  at 
hand;"  or,  perhaps,  a  parent  has  sinned,  and  the 
wound  is  one  so  deep  that  many  generations  of  suf- 
fering will  not  heal  it.  In  silence  and  in  solitude, 
the  agony  of  life  continues;  while  prayer  for  relief, 
whatever  be  the  form,  is  all  in  vain. 

If  one  looks  about  and  numbers  the  men  and 
women  of  his  acquaintanceship,  what  a  meager  few 
of  this  number  does  he  find  to  whom  a  beneficent 
Providence  has  given  release  from  such  suffering! 
And  if  the  inner  life  of  our  neighbors  were  known  to 
us,  the  ache  and  pain  of  heart  and  soul  revealed 

1  DRUMMOND,  Ascent  of  Man. 


6o       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

would  be  so  great  that  human  strength  could  not 
endure  to  face  it.  Occasionally  the  veil  is  lifted, 
and,  for  a  moment,  humanity  at  large,  through  the 
medium  of  the  daily  press — that  mighty  power  for 
good,  and  yet  a  power  as  great  for  evil — gazes  into 
the  inmost  recesses  of  the  privacy  of  a  life,  upon  a 
sickening  spectacle  of  woe  and  misery.  Such  was 
the  life  of  David  in  olden  times,  as  we  read  it  in  the 
disclosures  of  the  prophetic  recital. 

We  see  him  as  a  shepherd  boy  trusting  innocently 
in  the  God  whose  pastures  and  quiet  waters  fur- 
nished food  for  life  and  thought.  We  see  him  as 
courtier  at  the  court  of  Saul,  tempted  and  flattered, 
abandoning  the  simple  faith  and  habits  of  home  life, 
trusting  and  at  last  joining  those  who  are  hostile  to 
his  own  countrymen  and  his  God.  We  see  him  as 
king  of  Israel,  the  beloved  of  the  people,  the  favor- 
ite of  the  people's  God,  cruelly  torturing  to  the  death 
those  who  fall  into  his  hands.  Selfish  docs  he  seem 
beyond  belief  when,  though  himself  a  warrior,  he 
sends  his  armies  to  the  field  while  he  remains  behind 
in  the  ease  and  luxury  of  his  court ;  and  how  sensual 
and  murderous,  when,  after  seducing  the  wife  of  his 
brave  captain  Uriah,  he  arranges,  in  the  hope  of 
covering  his  guilt,  for  Uriah's  death.  From  this 
day  forward  to  the  end  of  life  David  suffered  in  pri- 
vate and  before  the  world.  In  the  months  that 
follow  his  agony  is  so  great  that  his  very  bones  cry 
out  in  anguish  of  pain.  The  child  that  is  born  to 


TRIALS  OF  LIFE  61 

him  sickens  and  dies;  his  daughter  is  violated  by 
his  own  son.  He  himself  is  forsaken  by  his  country- 
men, who  place  another  son,  Absalom,  upon  the 
throne;  and  the  same  Absalom,  in  the  full  light  of 
day,  takes  to  himself  his  father's  wives.  Then 
Absalom,  gives  battle,  and  perishes  miserably,  to 
David's  indescribable  grief.  The  years  pass  on, 
but  they  are  years  of  confusion  and  strife,  of  death- 
bringing  pestilence,  of  harsh  reproach  and  stinging 
rebuke;  and  finally,  as  David  lies  sick  unto  death 
in  his  palace,  the  tumult  of  conflict  sounds  in  his 
ear,  plots  and  counterplots  thicken  the  air  about 
him,  the  queen  is  occupied  with  the  question  of 
succession;  and  so  the  king,  forgotten  at  the  last, 
gives  up  a  life  covered  with  the  dishonorable  scars 
of  sin.  David's  life  is  a  type,  and  history  is  full  of 
such  lives.  Every  life,  indeed,  has  in  it  something 
of  the  sorrow  of  David — suffering  for  sin. 

It  is  not  only,  however,  our  personal  disappoint- 
ments and  sufferings  that  we  must  bear.  We  must 
suffer  with  others;  and  we  must  suffer  for  others. 
The  calamity  which  befalls  any  one  of  those  with 
whom  we  live  always  brings  some  pain  to  us.  Our 
individuality  is  so  bound  up  with  that  of  others  that 
we  often  fail  to  ask  ourselves  whose  burden  we  are 
bearing,  our  own  or  a  friend's.  It  is  this  close  asso- 
ciation that  cements  friendships  and  takes  away 
from  life  something  of  its  bitterness,  and  yet  at  times 
it  is  this  very  suffering  which  seems  most  bitter. 


62        RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

One's  utter  inability  to  afford  relief,  in  an  hour  of 
distress,  finds  expression  in  the  entire  willingness 
with  which  the  mother  would  take  the  child's  place, 
the  sister  the  brother's  place,  even  if  that  place  stands 
in  the  shadow  of  death.  Suffering  with  another 
thus  passes  into  suffering  for  another,  the  most  vital 
factor  in  life,  without  which  no  life  is  complete, 
with  which  any  life,  though  otherwise  most  degraded, 
may  become  a  life  of  glory. 

Consider  in  this  connection  of  vicarious  suffer- 
ing how  sad  was  the  condition  of  those  faithful  Jews 
who  were  torn  from  home,  temple,  and  country,  and 
carried  into  Babylon.  In  their  faithfulness  to 
Jehovah  they  could  not  comprehend  why  such  suf- 
fering should  be  theirs.  They  bore  this  foreign 
captivity  for  a  sin  committed,  not  by  themselves, 
but  by  their  brethren  who  now  disloyally  with  bitter 
taunts  and  reproaches  spat  upon  them  and  said: 
"Where  is  the  great  Jehovah  in  whom  ye  so  strongly 
profess  to  believe  ?  Why  does  he  not  give  aid  ? " 
But  for  them  saddest  of  all  must  have  been  the 
thought  that  Jehovah  had  abandoned  them:  "My 
God,  My  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?"  They 
suffered  because  others  had  sinned;  but  not  alone 
for  this.  They  suffered  that  they  might  become 
purified  and  developed;  that  through  their  suffering 
light  should  come  to  the  world,  and  deliverance  to 
all  humanity. 

For  us,  then,  pain  and  disappointment  are  ahead, 


TRIALS  OF  LIFE  63 

and  at  times  we  must  endure  them  alone;  at  times, 
with  those  whom  we  call  our  friends;  sorrow  and 
anguish — which,  perhaps,  we  deserve  to  experience, 
or  which  we  must  accept  as  the  legacy  of  heredity; 
suffering  and  agony  through  which  we  pass  because 
others  have  been  faithless  to  their  trust,  or,  perhaps, 
in  order  to  secure  for  others  blessings  which  we  may 
not  enjoy. 

When  we  come  to  apply  to  ourselves  what  has 
been  said,  two  questions  present  themselves:  How 
may  we  best  meet  these  pains  and  disappointments 
when  they  come?  and,  What  preparation  shall  we 
make  for  the  sorrows  and  agonies  of  life  which,  soon 
or  late,  we  must  suffer  ? 

My  answer  to  the  first  is:  Face  to  face,  just  as 
you  would  meet  an  enemy.  With  the  courage  of  a 
stout-hearted  warrior,  who  will  not  brook  defeat, 
you  must  stand  firm.  Then  each  assault  beaten  off, 
your  enemy  will  be  weaker,  while  you  are  stronger. 
Take  advantage  of  every  favorable  factor  in  the 
situation;  keep  in  readiness  every  available  weapon; 
and  fight,  for,  whether  you  know  it  or  not,  you  are 
fighting  for  your  life.  To  yield  is  to  die.  You 
must  conquer,  or  forever  be  a  slave — a  slave  to  doubt 
or  apprehension ;  a  slave  sinking  deeper  and  deeper 
in  the  bondage  of  self-distrust. 

But  you  must  also  meet  this  pain  and  suffering 
face  to  face,  as  you  would  meet  a  friend  for,  para- 
doxical though  it  may  seem  to  be,  every  pain  in  the 


64       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

physical  world,  and  every  disappointment  in  the 
world  of  spirit,  if  rightly  reckoned  with,  is  a  good 
friend,  from  whom  we  may  gather  great  assistance. 
This  friend  has  come,  perhaps,  to  bring  a  word  of 
warning,  which,  if  heeded,  will  render  unneces- 
sary visits  of  an  equally  friendly,  though  probably 
more  painful,  character.  Study  this  friend  closely. 
Though  its  attitude  may  at  first  seem  hostile,  attach 
yourself  to  it  as  you  would  attach  yourself  to  a  well- 
beloved  companion.  Standing  face  to  face  with  it, 
allow  your  eye  fondly  and  lovingly  to  rest  upon  it 
until  you  have  read  the  thought  which  only  the  eye 
of  a  friend  would  disclose.  Receive  the  message  as 
you  would  receive  the  loving  words  of  a  friend,  even 
though  such  words  may  cut  you  to  the  soul.  Do 
not  be  tempted  into  impatience  or  irritation,  for 
this  will  be  an  indication  of  distrust.  No  lukewarm 
attachment  will  be  helpful.  Remember  that  in  a 
close  friendship  both  friends  are  masters,  the  one 
of  the  other.  In  battle  only  one  may  be  victorious. 
Treating  this  experience  as  a  friend,  willingly  permit 
it  to  have  full  mastery  of  you;  for  in  so  doing  you 
in  turn  gain  complete  mastery  of  it.  Cherish  it, 
hold  it  close;  for  unless  you  are  absolutely  loyal, 
your  treachery  will  be  discovered,  and,  abandoned 
by  the  influences  which  would  gather  around  you, 
you  will  be  separated  farther  and  farther  from  the 
true  life  which  you  are  making  so  earnest  an  effort 
to  live. 


TRIALS  OF  LIFE  65 

And  further,  let  me  say  that  you  must  meet  the 
sorrows  and  disappointments  of  life  face  to  face  as 
you  would  meet  God  himself,  were  he  to  be  presented 
to  you.  If  there  is  a  God,  and  if  he  has  to  do  with 
mortal  man,  his  messages  are  delivered  in  the  events 
which  make  up  life's  experience.  When  does  God 
speak  to  men,  and  how  ?  When  he  would  have  them 
know  more  of  himself — some  new  phase  of  his  char- 
acter which  has  not  yet  impressed  itself  upon  them; 
when  he  would  for  their  own  sakes  teach  them  the 
outcome  of  this  or  that  kind  of  action,  this  or  that 
policy  of  life;  when,  perhaps,  he  desires  to  draw 
them  nearer  to  himself,  to  purify  and  make  more 
perfect  their  character.  And  how  does  the  message 
come?  In  great  disaster  and  war;  or  in  the  inflic- 
tion of  loss,  whether  of  property  or  of  friends.  That 
man  has  not  learned  to  live  who  does  not  recognize 
in  every  event  of  life  the  hand  of  God  stretched  forth 
to  guide  and  lift  him  up  toward  heaven.  When, 
therefore,  disappointment  comes,  and  pain  follows 
close  at  hand,  one  must  be  reverent  and  not  blas- 
phemous as  was  Job  of  old,  even  though  his  blas- 
phemy was  accounted  better  than  the  piety  of  his 
friends.  One  must  be  reverent  and  resigned;  for 
the  struggle,  if  it  is  a  struggle,  is  with  God  himself. 
Face  to  face  as  with  an  enemy;  face  to  face  as  with 
the  closest  friend,  and  face  to  face  as  standing  in  the 
very  presence  of  God,  one  must  meet  the  sorrows 
and  disappointments,  the  pains  and  the  suffering, 
of  life. 


66       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

There  remains,  now,  the  second  question:  How 
shall  one  best  fit  himself  beforehand  for  the  dis- 
appointments of  life,  and  for  all  its  suffering  ?  And 
my  answer  to  this  is: 

Begin  at  once  to  suffer,  if  you  have  not  already 
begun.  Try  to  find  a  disappointment.  Not,  of 
course,  your  own;  but  someone's  else.  Enter  into 
his  situation;  put  yourself  by  his  side;  give  what 
your  sympathy  alone  can  give;  receive,  in  turn, 
what  sympathy  alone  can  receive.  Your  advantage 
will  be  twofold  and  direct. 

First,  the  attitude  of  mind  in  him  who  suffers  will 
be  for  you  a  preparation,  whether  such  attitude  be 
good  or  bad.  For  the  effect  of  suffering  is  learned. 
Association  with  those  who  are  in  distress  ought  not 
to  harden  the  heart,  and  does  not  harden  the  true 
heart.  Such  familiarity  tends,  rather,  to  make  all 
the  more  tender  the  heart  which  has  thus  put  itself 
in  the  way  of  suffering.  And  besides,  he  alone  knows 
how  to  accept  sympathy,  and  to  get  good  from  it, 
who  has  learned  to  give  it  when  and  where  it  was 
needed.  If  you  would  experience  the  blessing  of 
having  sympathetic  friends  in  days  of  trouble,  be  a 
sympathetic  friend  before  your  trouble  comes. 

If  you  would  anticipate  the  troubles  of  life,  make 
earnest  and  continuous  effort  to  obtain  a  vision  of 
God.  Too  many  of  us  rest  satisfied  because,  having 
heard  of  God,  we  think  this  sufficient.  The  heart 
must  see  God,  if  the  intellect  would  understand 


TRIALS  OF  LIFE  67 

him.  How  much  greater  is  the  world's  suffering 
because  men  have  heard  of  God  only  by  the  hearing 
of  the  ear,  whereas,  if  the  eye  were  to  see  him,  there 
would  come  a  vision  so  immediate  and  so  full  that 
darkness  would  not  seem  to  be  darkness  but  light, 
and  suffering  would  be  accepted  with  joy. 

And  finally,  if  you  would  anticipate  trouble  and 
would  prepare  yourself  for  suffering,  hold  relation- 
ship with  that  unique  character  in  the  world's  his- 
tory who  suffered  as  no  man  ever  suffered  before  or 
since — alone  in  the  agony  of  Gethsemane,  upon  the 
cross,  in  the  face  of  all  the  world ;  whom  men  buffeted 
and  reproached  and  spat  upon,  and  whose  last  words 
were:  "My  God,  My  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken 
me?"  whose  sympathy  with  a  suffering  humanity 
was  so  great  that  only  God  himself  could  have  ex- 
perienced and  expressed  it;  whose  life  and  death,  a 
long  series  of  indignities  and  sufferings,  have  brought 
light  and  life  to  all  who  will  accept  them. 

Hold  relationship  with  this  man,  Jesus,  for  in  so 
doing  you  at  once  begin  to  suffer  with  him  and  with 
the  world  for  which  he  suffered;  you  are  at  once 
coming  into  that  attitude  of  sympathy  with  all  about 
you  which  will  make  it  possible  to  give  and  to  receive 
blessing.  He  who  is  in  sympathy  with  Jesus  Christ 
is  in  sympathy  with  suffering  of  every  form,  in  every 
clime.  He  who  is  not  in  such  sympathy  stands 
alone,  separated  from  the  whole  world  of  sympathy, 
and  from  every  other  man  who  like  himself  lacks 


68       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

such  sympathy.  He  stands  alone,  unable  to  give, 
and,  when  trouble  overtakes  him,  unable  to  receive, 
true  sympathy. 

But  furthermore,  we  have  seen  that  not  the  hear- 
ing of  God,  but  the  seeing  of  him,  is  the  solution 
of  life's  difficulties.  How  easy  it  is  for  us,  in  these 
days,  to  have  this  sight,  this  vision  of  God !  It  was 
for  this  purpose  that  Jesus  came  to  men,  from  God 
the  Father,  to  represent  him  as  only  he  could  be 
represented  to  humanity.  This,  above  all  things 
else,  was  his  mission,  to  make  God  known  to  man; 
Jesus,  the  brother,  through  whom  the  Father  might 
be  revealed  to  those  who  also  were  brothers.  To 
see  Jesus  is  to  have  had  a  sight  of  God. 

In  fellowship,  then,  with  Jesus  the  sufferer;  in 
companionship  with  Jesus  the  friend  and  brother; 
and  in  obedience  to  Jesus  the  Lord,  one  is  best  pre- 
pared for  the  battle  of  life. 

If  my  theme  this  afternoon  has  seemed  a  gloomy 
one,  its  purpose,  I  can  assure  you,  has  only  been  to 
suggest  how  burden  and  suffering  may  be  averted, 
or  at  all  events  relieved,  and  the  lives  of  those  who 
are  now  so  soon  to  leave  us  thus  made  the  brightest 
possible.  "Come  unto  me  all  ye  that  labor  and  are 
heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest." 


LOYALTY  TO  SELF 

THESE  are  days  in  which  men's  minds  and  hearts 
are  filled  with  the  thought  of  loyalty — loyalty  to 
country.  The  nation  is  being  quickened  in  every 
fiber  of  its  life  by  the  strange  and  striking  events 
of  the  passing  hour,  and  the  sons  and  daughters  of 
the  nation,  while  they  bemoan  the  seeming  necessity 
of  war,  while  they  may  think  that  this,  perhaps, 
could  have  been  avoided,  at  the  same  time  rejoice 
in  the  new  and  lofty  sentiments  aroused  by  the 
stories  of  brave  and  courageous  acts  which  men  of 
our  own  blood  and  our  own  generation  have  per- 
formed. The  names  of  Dewey  and  Hobson  and  the 
story  of  their  deeds  rouse  an  intense  spirit  of  loyalty 
within  us — a  spirit  far  different  from  that  slow  stir- 
ring of  the  blood  we  get  from  the  perusal  of  brave 
actions  of  passed  generations.  And  more  than  this, 
devotion  to  country  becomes  a  stronger  passion  as  we 
are  awakened  to  an  appreciation  of  the  country's 
strength  and  opportunities.  We  see  today  what  a 
score  of  years  ago  would  have  been  thought  impos- 
sible— men  who  once  fought  against  each  other  now 
standing  side  by  side  in  a  struggle  with  a  common 
foe — and  the  nation  thus  united  will  do  what  could 

69 


70       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

not  have  been  done  until  such  union  was  a  union  in 
fact  as  well  as  in  name. 

We  see  the  coming  of  an  alliance  *  with  the 
greatest  of  the  world-powers — greatest  not  only  in 
naval  equipment  and  in  financial  strength,  but  great- 
est likewise  as  a  power  for  good ;  an  alliance,  indeed, 
of  all  who  speak  the  English  tongue;  and  this  event 
will  signify  as  no  single  event  since  the  coming  of 
Christ  has  signified,  "peace  and  good-will  to  men." 

We  see  our  nation  just  passing  from  its  period  of 
adolescence,  from  a  youth  with  his  vigor  only  par- 
tially developed,  into  a  manhood  conscious  of  newly 
acquired  powers;  a  nation  able  henceforth  to  stand 
side  by  side  with  other  nations,  and  as  one  of  them 
to  determine,  the  method  and  kind  of  progress  which 
the  world  shall  make. 

We  see  our  nation  still  sensitive  to  the  cry  of  the 
oppressed  and  downtrodden;  and  may  the  day  be 
far  distant  when  that  cry,  wherever  uttered,  shall 
not  be  heeded!  May  it  never  be  that  the  heart  of 
America  shall  fail,  as  the  hearts  of  European 
nations  have  failed,  to  respond  to  the  voice  of  the 
lowly  and  the  suffering,  when  that  voice  is  raised 
for  help ! 

Events  are  taking  place  today  which  are  fraught 
with  as  heavy  significance  as  any  that  have  happened 
within  the  century  and  a  quarter  of  the  nation's 
history.  And  these  events  are  creating  a  new  spirit 
within  us — a  spirit  of  intense  loyalty,  a  spirit  pos- 


LOYALTY  TO  SELF  71 

sesscd  of  all  the  strength  and  freshness  of  a  new 
creation.  There  is  no  man,  who  can  be  called  a 
man,  to  whom,  in  such  times,  the  word  "loyalty" 
does  not  take  on  new  meaning. 

But  these  are  days,  too,  in  which  men's  minds 
and  hearts  are  filled  with  another  thought  of  loyalty — 
loyalty  to  God.  The  world  knows  God  at  this,  the 
close  of  the  nineteenth  century,  as  he  has  not  been 
known  in  all  past  ages.  The  sum  of  truth  known 
to  men  is  larger;  but,  better  than  this,  the  sum  of 
truth  put  into  application  is  greater.  It  is  not  what 
one  knows  that  counts,  but  the  use  made  of  what 
one  knows.  God  is  coming  into  contact  with  life 
with  an  ever-increasing  degree  of  force.  Life  is 
responding  to  the  touch  of  God  with  an  ever-increas- 
ing degree  of  appreciation.  It  is  truth  that  makes 
men  free.  But  what  is  truth  ?  Any  act  or  thought 
which  is  in  harmony  with  the  will  of  God  and  with 
God's  laws  is  truth.  To  act  or  think  out  of  har- 
mony with  his  nature  is  to  act  or  think  that  which 
is  not  true.  To  be  free  is  to  live  and  move  in  touch 
with  him;  to  love  him,  and  to  show  that  love  by 
devotion  to  him  and  his  cause.  To  love  him  is  to 
be  free  and  to  make  others  free.  This  is  loyalty  to 
God. 

The  ignorant  love  of  God,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
mere  superstition.  Real  love,  true  loyalty,  are  pos- 
sible only  for  those  whose  conception  of  him  is  an 
intelligent  conception.  For  God  was  known  only 


72        RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

in  part  before  the  day  when  Science  began  to  make 
her  contribution  toward  a  better  knowledge  of  the 
laws  through  which  he  works.  And  in  proportion 
as  this  contribution  in  the  future  shall  become  more 
definite,  our  knowledge  of  him  will  become  more 
clear.  And  so  it  follows  that  the  man  who  ignores 
the  contribution  of  Science  thus  far  made  is  guilty 
of  disloyalty. 

The  connection  between  this  loyalty  to  country 
and  loyalty  to  God  is  clearly  to  be  seen.  Thus  the 
interest  in  human  kind,  so  intense  in  modern  times; 
the  love  of  man  for  his  fellow-man,  as  shown  in  so 
many  ways;  the  pouring  out  of  life  and  property  for 
the  purpose  of  helping  those  who  need  help — all 
this,  seen  today  as  the  past  has  not  seen  it,  is  God 
working  through  the  hearts  of  men  in  behalf  of 
other  men;  and  every  such  manifestation  is  a  mani- 
festation of  harmony  with  God's  will,  of  loyalty  to 
God.  "Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  inasmuch  as  ye  did 
it  unto  one  of  these  my  brethren,  even  these  least, 
ye  did  it  unto  me."  "Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  inas- 
much as  ye  did  it  not  unto  one  of  these  least,  ye  did 
it  not  unto  me." 

We  all  realize  that  the  world  is  growing  better; 
that  its  ideals  of  life  are  gradually  rising  high  and 
higher.  And  this  is  so  because  the  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual is  moving  on  a  higher  plane.  Herein,  per- 
haps, lies  the  most  conspicuous  evidence  of  God's 
presence,  and  at  the  same  time  the  most  marked 


LOYALTY  TO  SELF  73 

indication  of  loyalty  to  God.  For  when  God  finds 
opportunity  to  enter  a  man's  heart,  when  that  heart 
turns  away  from  unrighteousness,  then  in  all  sure- 
ness  we  see  the  working  of  the  hand  of  God  and  the 
sign  of  loyalty  to  his  standards,  and  seeing  this  we 
see  God  himself,  just  as  in  seeing  Christ,  the  perfect 
man,  the  world  saw  God. 

With  love  of  country  thus  incited  by  the  things 
we  see  and  hear  on  every  side,  with  love  of  God 
quickened  by  what  we  see,  that  was  not  seen  before, 
in  nature,  in  the  lives  of  those  about  us,  and  perhaps 
in  our  own  individual  life,  we  ask  ourselves  the  ques- 
tion: How  may  each  life  most  thoroughly  and  most 
perfectly  possess  itself  of  all  these  opportunities  ?  How 
may  one  reach  this  high  plane  of  true  loyalty  to 
country  and  to  God? 

The  answer  to  this  question  is  my  message  to  the 
members  of  the  University,  on  whom  the  University 
will  soon  bestow  its  highest,  and  indeed  its  only, 
honors.  Briefly,  the  answer  is  this:  In  order  to 
be  loyal  to  country  and  to  God,  first  of  all  be  loyal 
to  yourself. 

For  this  loyalty  to  self,  if  cultivated  and  acquired, 
will  lead  you  to  avoid  those  things  which,  left  to  exert 
themselves  upon  you,  must  demoralize  and  ultimately 
break  you  down.  Such  influences  are  many  and 
strong  and  all  about  you.  They  form  an  integral 
part  of  the  plan  of  life.  Without  them  life  would 
be  an  insipid  thing.  Strength  in  life  is,  for  the  most 


74       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

part,  secured  by  resisting  them.  Death  comes  by 
yielding  to  them.  Do  many  die  thus?  Yes;  that 
the  few  who  live  may  live  stronger  lives.  This  is 
the  law  of  life.  If,  now,  you  would  be  loyal  to 
country  and  to  God,  if  you  would  place  yourself  in 
a  position  to  give  evidence  of  such  loyalty,  you  must 
first  be  sure  of  your  strength  to  resist  everything 
that  may  weaken  you,  whether  in  body,  in  mind, 
or  in  soul.  The  country  has  no  use  for  a  weakling. 
The  instruments  of  God  must  be  the  best  and  strong- 
est. One  cannot  be  true  to  God  and  country  and 
at  the  same  time  false  to  self. 

"The  first  great  task  (a  task  performed  by  few) 
Is  that  yourself  may  to  yourself  be  true." 

"To  thine  own  self  be  true, 
And  it  must  follow,  as  the  night  the  day, 
Thou  canst  not  then  be  false  to  any  man." 

It  is  easy  enough  to  deceive  ourselves  in  this  mat- 
ter. And  though  we  sometimes  endeavor  to  conceal 
this  fatal  weakness,  the  effort  always  fails.  A  man 
who  has  no  self-respect  is  dead  to  every  true  feeling 
of  patriotism  or  piety. 

Furthermore,  this  loyalty  to  self,  to  the  extent  in 
which  it  is  acquired,  will  enable  you  to  overcome  the 
difficulties  and  disappointments  of  life.  These,  like 
the  temptations  to  which  I  have  just  referred,  are 
inevitable.  No  man  ever  achieved  greatness  who 
was  lacking  in  strength  to  overcome  great  obstacles. 
The  greatest  men  in  history  have  been  those  whose 


LOYALTY  TO  SELF  75 

greatness  came  because  a  kind   Providence  gave 
them  obstacles  to  overcome. 

"Noble  souls  through  dust  and  heat 
Rise  from  disaster  and  defeat 
The  stronger." 

Do  not,  then,  misunderstand  the  meaning  of 
those  difficulties  with  which  life  is  so  entangled. 
One  cannot  gain  strength  without  them.  For  they  con- 
stitute a  preparation,  each  in  itself  for  something  more 
difficult,  and  all  together  a  preparation  for  the  giving 
up  of  life  itself — a  renunciation  which  but  for  such 
preparation  would  be  the  most  difficult  thing  in  life. 
Thus  loyalty  to  self  means  strengthening  of  self  for 
the  battles  of  life,  whether  fought  in  the  army  of 
the  nation  or  for  the  kingdom  of  God.  Whom  can 
you  expect  to  believe  in  you,  if  you  do  not  believe 
in  yourself?  More  men  commit  the  sin  of  undue 
self -depreciation  than  that  of  undue  self-confidence. 

Loyalty  to  self  means  also  making  the  most  of 
self.  Nature  has  so  endowed  each  one  of  us  that 
life  has  something,  at  all  events,  for  us  to  do.  In 
the  case  of  many  it  is  a  particular  thing  clearly  de- 
termined by  the  character  of  the  endowment  given. 
Loyalty  to  self's  best  interests  demands  that  one's 
effort  be  put  forth  to  discover  this  particular  thing, 
and,  when  it  is  discovered,  to  undertake  it,  and  not 
something  else  for  which  an  endowment  was  not 
given.  Thus  the  failures  in  life  are  of  two  kinds: 
those  in  which  the  individual  has  not  been  able  to 


76       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

discover  what  it  was  intended  he  should  do.  Oh, 
what  is  so  sad  in  life — not  sickness,  nor  insanity, 
nor  even  death — as  an  aimless  life!  The  other 
kind  of  failure  is  seen  in  the  case  of  those  who,  at 
heart  knowing  the  nature  of  the  life-work  which 
should  be  undertaken,  are  unwilling  to  undertake 
it,  and  turn  instead  to  something  else  because, 
perhaps,  this  something  else  is  thought  to  be  easier, 
or  more  dignified  or  lucrative.  It  is  no  sin  to  be 
ambitious.  To  be  ambitious  in  the  true  sense  is 
only  to  seek  to  bring  one's  self  into  harmony  with 
the  will  of  God;  to  endeavor  to  fulfil  the  promises 
which  God  has  made  in  his  constitution  of  one's 
being;  and  not  to  be  ambitious  is  to  array  one's 
self  against  his  Creator. 

Loyalty  to  self  means,  I  say,  the  making  the  most 
of  self;  this,  however,  will  not  be  a  making  the  most  of 
self  at  the  expense  of  others,  but  for  others'  welfare. 
It  is  in  this  way  that  ambition  becomes  a  virtue  rather 
than  a  vice;  a  command  from  heaven  rather  than  a 
word  from  hell.  To  make  the  most  of  self  at  the 
expense  of  others  is  the  greatest  sin  which  man  may 
commit ;  to  make  the  most  of  self  in  order  that  others 
may  be  benefited  is  the  highest  duty  which  man  may 
practice.  The  line  of  distinction  is  sharp,  and  ap- 
plies alike  to  nations  and  to  men.  From  an  ambition 
to  secure  self-aggrandizement  may  God  deliver  our 
country!  But  may  He  also  implant  deep  in  our 
hearts  an  ambition  to  develop  our  strength  that  we 


LOYALTY  TO  SELF  77 

may  be  of  service  to  the  world!  There  was  never 
a  time  when  temptation  to  do  the  thing  which  would 
hurt  was  stronger  or  more  insidious.  There  was 
never  a  time  when  the  problems  of  life  were  more 
numerous  or  more  difficult  to  contend  with.  There 
was  never  a  time  when  the  world  could  furnish  to 
those  taking  up  its  duties  greater  promise  of  oppor- 
tunity for  success.  To  resist  these  temptations,  to 
battle  with  these  obstacles,  to  achieve  this  success — 
in  other  words,  to  be  loyal  to  self — should  be,  and 
indeed  must  be,  the  highest  aim  of  every  man  who 
would  be  true  to  the  country  of  his  adoption  or  his 
birth;  true  to  the  God  of  his  fathers  or  to  the  God 
of  his  own  experience.  May  the  heart  beat  quicker 
as  we  learn  more  clearly  our  country's  mission  among 
the  nations  of  the  earth !  May  it  beat  more  lovingly 
as  we  more  clearly  learn  the  method  and  the  work 
and  the  character  of  the  world's  Creator  and  Ruler ! 
May  it,  to  this  end,  beat  more  truly  and  sincerely 
as  we  grapple  with  the  powers  of  evil,  as  we  rise 
above  trouble  and  despair,  as  we  set  ourselves  to 
undertake  the  work  divinely  appointed  us  to  do! 


VI 
DEPENDENCE 

IN  these  days  we  find  it  necessary  to  lay  stress 
upon  what  is  called  independence — independence 
in  spirit  and  independence  in  action.  The  neces- 
sity arises  because,  as  it  would  seem,  this  quality,  if 
I  may  call  it  such,  is  not  even  yet  sufficiently  culti- 
vated. The  desirability  of  acquiring  it  or  of  pos- 
sessing it  is  never  questioned.  Upon  those  who 
possess  it  we  are  accustomed  to  look  with  admira- 
tion. The  man  who  thinks  for  himself  is  the  ideal 
man.  The  imitator,  on  the  other  hand,  who  shows 
at  every  step  his  entire  dependence  upon  those 
about  him;  who  never  thinks  for  himself,  never  acts 
for  himself;  whose  opinion  is  that  of  the  man  with 
whom  he  last  held  conversation;  who  does,  for  the 
most  part,  just  what  the  world  tells  him  to  do — this 
man  his  fellows  esteem  lightly. 

The  real  purpose  of  the  intellectual  work  carried 
on  in  all  our  schools  and  institutions  of  learning, 
from  the  lowest  to  the  highest,  is  to  make  those  who 
receive  the  discipline  of  the  school  capable  of  think- 
ing, acting,  and,  in  short,  of  living  independently. 
In  so  far  as  this  end  is  attained,  our  institutions 
succeed;  and  in  so  far  as  they  fall  short  of  attaining 
it,  they  fail.  This  is  the  purpose — is  it  not? — of 

78 


DEPENDENCE  79 

our  reading,  of  every  kind  of  intellectual  activity. 
The  things  about  us,  here  in  America,  are  intended 
to  cultivate  this  characteristic.  Our  history,  as  we 
read  it,  stimulates  us  in  this  direction.  The  study 
of  our  civil  institutions,  whatever  defects  such  study 
may  bring  to  light,  encourages  us  to  breathe  more 
freely,  and  to  make  every  effort  to  throw  aside  the 
fetters  of  tradition,  many  of  which  we  still  wear  as 
an  inheritance  from  our  fathers.  In  religious  and 
theological  thought  the  tendency  is  the  same.  Who 
does  not  see  that  men  may  speak  and  think  more 
freely,  that  men  do  speak  and  think  more  freely? 
It  is  to  this  liberty  of  thought  and  action,  this  pos- 
sibility of  exercising  independence,  that  we  are 
indebted  for  the  rapid  and  forward  movement 
which  within  a  century  has  taken  place  in  every 
line  of  human  action,  whether  material  or  intellec- 
tual. 

What  we  need  to  inquire,  first  of  all,  in  connec- 
tion with  this  tendency  is:  Are  there  any  indica- 
tions that  the  liberty  which  we  so  prize  will  be 
restricted?  Will  the  movement  forward  become  a 
movement  backward  ?  Will  this  independence, 
which,  after  all,  is  but  another  name  for  individual- 
ity, gradually,  or  perhaps  suddenly,  become  a  thing 
of  the  past  ? 

The  answer,  if  indications  may  be  trusted,  is  that 
the  very  reverse  will  be  true.  Individualism  is  the 
doctrine  of  the  future — in  religion,  in  business,  and 


8o       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

in  letters.  It  may  be  urged  that  combination  is  the 
order  of  the  day.  But  these  combinations,  when 
examined  closely,  exhibit  an  individuality  of  the 
most  marked  character.  Indeed,  it  was  not  until 
the  days  of  specialists  that  combinations  arose;  the 
underlying  principle  of  all  of  them  is  that  of  special- 
ism, or  individualism. 

There  is  no  probability — indeed,  there  is  hardly 
a  chance — that,  in  the  future,  we  are  to  expect  any- 
thing even  apparently  reactionary.  It  is  probable, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  the  spirit  of  independence, 
of  individualism,  will  grow  stronger  and  more  intense. 
Indeed,  there  is  a  danger  that  this  spirit  may  grow 
too  strong  and  do  great  harm.  There  is  danger 
that  men  will  forget  the  difference  between  being 
independent  and  feeling  independent.  The  man 
who  is  independent  is  rarely  conscious  of  the  fact. 
The  man  who  feels  independent,  and  takes  occasion 
to  exhibit  the  feeling,  generally  lacks  the  thing  which 
he  imagines  himself  to  feel.  The  line  between 
spurious  and  real  independence  is  sharply  drawn. 
The  spurious — and  it  is  this  which  we  all  too  fre- 
quently meet — soon  develops  into  arrogance  and 
conceit ;  for  these  are  but  the  outer  shell  of  an 
inner  emptiness. 

There  is  also  a  danger  in  the  genuine  independ- 
ence ;  and  this  danger  is  twofold :  it  takes  the  forms 
of  narrowness  and  of  self-dependence. 

The  cultivation  of  independence,   as  has  been 


DEPENDENCE  81 

said,  is  the  development  of  the  individual.  The 
individual,  however,  whatever  may  be  the  degree 
of  his  development,  never  ceases  to  be  part  of  a 
whole  composed  of  many  individuals.  The  ques- 
tion is:  Shall  the  part,  though  to  some  extent  sepa- 
rate, and  perhaps  elevated,  continue  to  be  a  part, 
and  as  such  to  exert  a  strong  and  helpful  influence 
upon  the  other  parts?  Or  shall  it,  though  only  a 
part,  exert  a  repellant  influence  on  them,  endeavor 
to  drive  off  the  other  parts,  and  then  to  usurp  the 
functions  of  the  whole  ?  This  is  what  happens 
when  one  of  our  number,  strong  in  the  particular 
thing  which  he  professes,  forgets  the  many  things 
which  should  occupy  a  position  side  by  side  with 
that  in  which  he  has  interest,  and  gradually  comes 
to  believe  that  his,  and  his  only,  is  of  value,  or  worthy 
of  thought.  In  other  words,  while  the  proper  culti- 
vation of  the  spirit  of  independence  will  produce 
breadth,  the  result,  if  it  is  wrongly  cultivated,  will 
be  narrowness;  and,  among  all  sins,  narrowness 
is  near  to  the  worst. 

The  other  phase  of  the  danger  involved  is  that, 
instead  of  independence,  we  acquire  self-dependence. 
This  does  not  mean  mere  self-conceit,  although  it 
would  not  be  surprising  to  find  the  latter  as  an 
accompaniment.  It  means  dependence  on  self 
carried  too  far — so  far,  indeed,  as  to  make  self  the 
god  at  whose  shrine  all  worship  is  conducted.  The 
sin  of  Babylon  of  old  was  this: 


8z       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

"Yea,  he  scoffeth  at  kings, 
And  princes  are  a  derision  unto  him: 

"He  derideth  every  stronghold; 
For  he  heapeth  up  dust  and  taketh  it. 

"Then  shall  the  wind  sweep  by  and  he  shall  pass  away, 
For  he  is  guilty,  even  he  whose  might  is  his  God." 

Nor  was  Babylon  the  ancient  nation  alone  guilty 
of  this  sin.  Many  individuals  nowadays  commit 
the  sin  of  self-worship. 

Before  continuing  our  direct  study  of  this  subject, 
we  must  look  at  the  obverse  of  it;  we  must  consider 
the  relation  of  independence  to  dependence.  For 
my  own  part,  I  desire  to  see  dependence  encouraged. 
Do  you  ask  why?  For  three  reasons:  First,  that 
the  independence  of  which  we  boast  may  be  a  real 
independence.  This  is  not  a  contradiction  of  terms. 
True  independence  is  based  upon  the  right  concep- 
tion of  the  relations  of  things.  This  right  concep- 
tion will  never  be  ours  unless  we  recognize  our  own 
insufficiency  and  weakness.  To  be  able  to  do,  one 
must  know  what  he  is  unable  to  do.  I  desire,  there- 
fore, to  see  dependence  encouraged. 

And,  second,  in  order  that  humanity  may  secure 
the  good  results  which  accrue  when  one  depends 
upon  another.  Benevolence,  the  greatest  virtue 
of  God  or  man,  is  only  exercised  when  there  is  on 
the  part  of  someone  an  act  of  dependence.  It  is 
more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive;  but  there  can- 
not be  giving  without  receiving. 


DEPENDENCE  83 

I  desire  to  see  dependence  encouraged,  finally, 
in  order  that  individualism  may  be  kept  within 
bounds.  There  is  no  virtue  that  may  not  become 
a  vice.  Individualism  may  be  pressed  too  far. 

The  dependence  which  I  have  in  mind,  is  how- 
ever, of  three  kinds.  The  first  I  have  already 
spoken  of  to  condemn  it — self-dependence.  I  speak 
of  it  now  to  commend  it,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
utter  a  word  of  caution.  It  is  one's  duty,  a  sacred 
duty,  to  ask  for  nothing  which  he  can  of  himself 
secure.  It  is  wrong  to  ask  from  God,  or  to  expect 
of  him,  that  which  we  ourselves  can  obtain.  To 
be  sure,  all  things  come  from  him,  and  yet  he  sees 
to  it  that  nothing  comes  but  that  for  which  we  work. 
To  do  for  one's  self  is  to  do  for  others.  For  no 
action  is  restricted  in  its  influence  to  the  doer  of  it. 
Dependence  on  self  carries  with  it,  for  all  who  make 
up  self's  circle,  blessings  seen  or  unseen.  But  care 
must  be  taken  lest,  as  has  been  suggested,  self- 
dependence  become  self-worship.  We  may  be 
confident,  but  we  must  not  be  overconfident.  Dis- 
trust of  self  generally  leads  to  ruin.  Here,  then, 
is  a  vice  which  at  times  may  be  a  virtue.  Let  us, 
at  least  on  rare  occasions,  distrust  ourselves.  For 
it  may  be  that  such  distrust  will  prevent  our  falling 
into  a  pit-hole. 

The  second  kind  of  dependence  I  shall  call 
inter-dependence.  Our  situation  in  this  world  is 
a  close  relationship  with  each  other  and  with 


84       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

nature.  Whether  we  will  or  not,  we  are  dependent. 
Nature  makes  us  dependent.  Civilization  has 
increased  the  debt,  if  debt  it  is,  that  we  owe  our 
contemporaries.  We  must  use,  but  not  abuse, 
the  privileges  granted  us.  Let  us  lean  upon  each 
other;  for  surely  the  brother  upon  whom  we  lean 
increases  his  own  strength  in  the  effort  to  sustain 
us.  Life  would  be  only  half  life  if  it  included 
giving  without  receiving,  or  yielding  without  securing. 

Here  again  the  word  of  caution  must  be  spoken. 
We  must  not  lean  upon  broken  reeds;  and  yet, 
how  shall  we  determine  who  is  strong  and  who  weak  ? 
So  often  a  mistake  is  made,  so  liable  is  it  to  be  made, 
that  we  are  almost  ready  to  cry  out  with  the  prophet : 
"Cease  ye  from  man,  whose  breath  is  in  his  nostrils, 
for  wherein  is  he  to  be  accounted  of."  Alas !  we  are 
in  sore  straits.  We  may  not  fully  trust  ourselves, 
we  may  not  fully  trust  our  fellow-men.  What 
shall  we  do?  The  answer  lies  in  what  shall  be 
said  of  the  third  kind  of  dependence.  This  time 
I  have  in  mind,  not  self,  nor  inter-dependence,  but 
a  dependence  which  is  absolute.  This  time  I  shall 
speak  no  word  of  caution. 

Will  you  picture  to  yourselves  a  scene  in  ancient 
Babylonia:  the  great  city,  with  its  immense  walls 
and  battlements,  the  very  embodiment  of  all  that 
was  powerful;  with  an  army  regarded  as  invincible; 
with  a  king  whose  prowess  in  war  the  whole  earth 
celebrates — mighty  Babylon,  the  mistress  of  the 


DEPENDENCE  85 

nations !  And  behold,  in  the  midst  of  all  this  pomp 
and  power,  that  ragged  captive  remnant,  the  residue 
of  what  was  once  the  lion  of  Judah;  a  poor, 
heart-sore,  distressed  folk,  held  in  reproach  by 
man,  seemingly  abandoned  by  God.  Never  was 
there  a  picture  combining  so  strong  an  apparent 
contrast  of  strength  and  weakness,  pride  and  debase- 
ment. But,  hark!  One  says  "Cry!"  And  the 
prophet  asks:  "What  shall  I  cry?"  "Tell  the 
downtrodden  captives,"  speaks  the  voice  from  heaven, 
"not  to  be  despondent.  Babylon's  walls  are  strong 
and  lofty;  Babylon's  king  is  fierce  and  terrible; 
but  all  flesh — and  Babylon,  after  all,  is  flesh — all 
flesh  is  grass,  and  all  the  goodliness  thereof  is  as 
the  flower  of  the  field:  the  grass  withereth,  the 
flower  fadeth,  when  the  breath  of  Jehovah  bloweth 
upon  it.  Babylon  is  grass.  The  grass  withereth, 
the  flower  fadeth;  but  the  word  of  our  God  shall 
stand  forever."  The  preacher  of  this  sad  period 
had  no  occasion  for  the  exercise  of  self-dependence; 
less,  if  possible,  for  that  of  dependence  upon  those 
about  him.  But  there  was  one  on  whom  he  depended 
— God;  and  his  trust  in  this  one  was  not  mis- 
placed. 

And  as  it  was  with  the  prophet,  so  with  us.  God 
is  the  rock  on  which  we  may  set  our  feet  without 
fear  of  danger.  Some  of  us  are  just  assuming  the 
responsibilities  of  life,  the  burdens  of  life — none 
too  light,  as  even  the  few  years  we  have  lived 


86       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

clearly  show.  Each  one  of  us,  however  situated, 
with  every  new  day  finds  new  cares.  It  is,  indeed, 
a  heavy  burden.  I  have  felt  that  every  year,  yes 
every  month,  contributed  to  the  weight  of  the  burden. 
And  we  are,  as  I  have  said,  taking  up  new  burdens 
all  the  while. 

Shall  we  ask  ourselves  now  whether  we  are  try- 
ing to  carry  them  alone  ?  Doubtless  we  are  putting 
forth  every  effort  to  do  all  that  men  and  women  can 
do.  We  do  not  wish  to  lean  too  heavily  upon  our 
friends.  Our  education  has  taught  us  independ- 
ence; but  have  we  also  learned  dependence?  My 
friends,  we  must  do  everything  we  are  able  to  do. 
We  must  secure  all  legitimate  aid  from  our  friends. 
But  we  may  not  stop  with  this,  or  life  will  bring  to 
us  nothing  in  comparison  with  what  might  have 
been  ours.  Go  one  step  farther.  Put  your  trust, 
and  keep  your  trust,  in  God.  Let  us  place  ourselves 
unreservedly  in  his  hands,  to  be  guided  according 
to  his  will.  If  we  are  weak,  he  will  strengthen  us; 
if  we  are  strong,  he  will  make  us  yet  stronger. 

"Gracious  is  the  Lord  and  righteous, 
Yea,  our  Lord  is  merciful. 
It  is  better  to  trust  in  the  Lord, 
Than  to  put  confidence  in  men." 

"It  is  better  to  trust  in  the  Lord, 
Than  to  put  confidence  in  princes." 

"Some  trust  in  chariots  and  some  in  horses; 
But  we  will  make  mention  of  the  Lord  our  God." 


DEPENDENCE  87 

"They  that  trust  in  the  Lord 

Are  as  Mount  Zion  which  cannot  be  moved,  but  abideth 
forever." 

"As  the  mountains  are  round  about  Jerusalem, 
So  the  Lord  is  round  about  his  people." 

Be  dependent?  Yes.  Be  likewise  dependent 
on  self?  Yes,  though  with  caution.  On  God? 
Yes;  without  reserve,  and  with  absolute  confidence 
that  he  will  render  help  in  every  time  of  need. 


VII 

CERTAINTY  AND  UNCERTAINTY  AS 
FACTORS  IN  LIFE 

So  CLOSELY  interwoven  are  the  many  and  various 
elements  which  make  up  life  that  most  of  us  fail  to 
recognize  the  complexity  which  sober  thought  shows 
us  to  exist,  and  consequently  to  make  due  allowance 
for  it.  Life,  even  in  its  simplest  forms,  is  complex. 
Nor  is  this  more  true  of  physical  than  of  social  life. 
In  the  case  of  both,  the  ancients  were  innocent  of 
any  true  comprehension  of  the  facts.  Their  ideas 
of  physiology  as  well  as  of  the  relationships  of  life  were 
crude  and  infantile.  Where  there  is  no  adequate 
knowledge  of  details  there  is,  of  course,  a  conception 
that  simplicity  exists ;  and  so  it  remained  for  modern 
times  to  discover  and  to  make  known  the  utterly  in- 
calculable complexity  of  life,  physical  and  social. 

One  sometimes  wonders  whether  this  additional 
knowledge  is  to  be  recognized  as  gain  or  loss. 
Whichever  it  may  be,  it  is  coming  into  our  possession 
with  a  rapidity  which  often  bewilders  us.  This  be- 
wilderment, however,  exists  not  merely  because  we 
are  for  the  first  time  beginning  to  comprehend  this 
complexity,  but  also  because  in  our  times  the  complex- 
ity is  being  greatly  intensified.  The  life  of  the  ancient 

88 


CERTAINTY  AND  UNCERTAINTY         89 

peoples,  even  if  it  had  been  understood,  would  have 
been  a  simple  thing  compared  to  the  life  which  we 
live.  The  century  so  soon  to  close  has  brought  a 
more  marked  advance  in  this  respect  than  perhaps 
any  ten  or  twenty  preceding  centuries.  That  a  still 
greater  complexity  is  something  inevitable,  no  one 
doubts.  With  the  progress  of  civilization  it  is  always 
increasing.  The  lines  run  out  in  still  more  numer- 
ous directions.  They  become  finer  and  finer,  so  as 
to  be  almost  imperceptible,  though  having  real 
existence.  The  possible  combinations  grow  in  num- 
ber and  form,  and  no  one  may  even  dream  of  the 
end  of  this  seemingly  boundless  development. 
There  is,  therefore,  no  advantage  to  be  gained  from 
opposing  it.  It  is  creeping  onward  quietly,  but 
irresistibly,  and  opposition  will  only  increase  the 
speed  of  its  progress.  Resistance  to  it  would  be 
like  the  resistance  of  an  isolated  tree  to  the  fierce 
windstorm  which  tears  it  from  its  roots,  or  like  that 
of  the  unprotected  hut  to  the  power  of  the  advancing 
river-torrent  which  swallows  it  and  leaves  nothing. 
Nor,  indeed,  are  we  for  a  moment  to  suppose  that 
it  is  undesirable.  The  word  "development,"  just 
used,  furnishes  us  the  explanation  of  it.  For  the 
highest  development  there  must  be  just  such  flexi- 
bility, such  interweaving,  such  combination,  such 
complexity. 

But  what  is  the  fate  of  the  individual  in  this 
complexity?    Here    is    the    practical    question    to 


90       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

which  we  ought  to  make  answer.  If  life  in  general 
is  thus  complex,  surely  life  in  particular  is  a  perplex 
thing;  a  labyrinth  or  maze  in  which  the  individual 
wanders  now  here,  now  there,  without  light  and 
without  guidance,  now  up,  now  down;  not  knowing, 
perhaps  not  even  caring,  what  shall  be  the  outcome. 
It  is  for  the  individual  to  make  the  needed  effort, 
however  great  a  struggle  it  may  be,  to  find  his  place 
in  the  midst  of  this  complexity.  How  shall  he  know 
where  he  belongs?  One  of  millions,  what  is  his 
relationship  to  those  about  him  ?  Aiming  to  ac- 
complish the  best  thing  for  himself,  what  is  his 
attitude  to  those  in  whose  midst  he  lives  ?  But 
whether  right  or  wrong,  whether  conscious  or  un- 
conscious, determined  to  find  a  place  for  himself, 
to  what  extent  shall  he  regard  the  rights  of  those 
who  are  aiming  for  the  same  place  ?  Is  not  this  the 
practical  issue  of  life — that  external  thing  for  which 
every  man  strives  who  has  ambition  in  him  ?  And 
is  not  the  higher  issue  only  another  phase  of  this? 
Various  methods  are  employed;  various  routes  are 
followed ;  but,  after  all,  it  is  the  essence  of  life  to  find 
one's  place  in  this  complicated  machinery  of  the 
world,  and  thus  to  avoid,  so  far  as  may  be,  the  dismal 
perplexities,  the  uncounted  miseries,  of  an  aimless 
existence.  Does  anyone  suppose  that  his  fellow, 
however  fortunate  he  may  be,  at  last  attains  a  posi- 
tion in  which  struggle  is  no  longer  needed  ?  Does  any- 
one suppose  that  for  any  human  being  this  perplexity 


CERTAINTY  AND  UNCERTAINTY         91 

ever  has  an  end  ?  No  man  has  lived  for  whom  life 
was  not  this  thing  of  doubt,  of  perplexity.  Heaven 
is  nothing  but  the  elimination  of  this  perplexity; 
hell,  its  further  intensification.  In  which  direction 
are  we  moving  ?  For  we  may  well  believe  that  the 
future  life  is  but  a  continuation  of  that  which  we 
deliberately  choose  in  this  life. 

Yet  back  of  this  question  lies  another  as  funda- 
mental and  as  important:  How  are  we  moving? 
Indeed,  the  two  questions  are  one,  for  if  the  method 
is  indicated,  one  is  inevitably  made  cognizant  of  the 
direction  likewise.  There  is  a  right  and  a  wrong 
policy  of  life.  Failure,  in  general,  is  due  to  an 
inability  to  grasp  the  right  policy.  In  this  policy — 
and  I  am  now  speaking  only  of  the  method  of  liv- 
ing— there  are  two  elements,  both  of  which  are  ne- 
cessary, both  of  which  contain  promise  of  good  out- 
come; either  of  which,  when  exaggerated,  brings 
ruin  and  disaster.  Has  it  occurred  to  you  that  the 
dividing  line  between  good  and  bad  is  very  diffi- 
cult to  draw;  that  the  character  of  the  policy  is  often 
determined,  not  by  what  it  is,  but  by  the  extent  to 
which  it  is  carried;  that  mistakes  are  made,  not 
simply  in  going,  but  in  going  too  far  or  not  going 
far  enough  ? 

Remembering,  now,  this  complicated  maze  in 
which  every  human  being  finds  himself  moving  in 
one  direction  or  another;  remembering  that  every 
action  has  to  do  with  the  actions  of  others,  every 


9z       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

thought  connects  itself  with  others'  thoughts;  re- 
membering that  all  possibilities  are  wrapt  up  in  the 
kind  of  combinations  made;  that  one  cannot  remain 
alone;  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  isolation;  that 
every  effort  must  be  put  forth  to  find  the  particular 
place  in  this  great  labyrinth  which  the  individual 
was  intended  to  occupy,  a  place  possibly  near  at  hand 
or  possibly  far  removed — picture  to  yourself  the  man 
who  refuses  to  put  forth  effort  to  find  this  place,  who 
fears  to  come  in  contact  with  other  forms  of  life, 
and  so  far  as  he  may,  stands  still;  who,  finding  him- 
self in  a  certain  groove,  remains  fixed  and  gradually 
becomes  hardened,  impervious  to  influence;  who 
hears  nothing,  sees  nothing,  merely  exists;  who, 
being  out  of  place  and  unable  to  find  a  place,  is 
consequently  out  of  connection  with  all  about  him, 
and  so  constituted  that  those  who  would  naturally 
come  into  relationship  with  him  are  injured  by  con- 
tact with  him;  who  has  become  callous  and  unsym- 
pathetic, out  of  touch  with  those  about  him  except  for 
harm;  who  is  unable  to  assist  or  direct  others  to  the 
place  in  the  maze  which  they  ought  to  occupy;  who, 
indeed,  actually  prevents  others  from  taking  the 
place  which  is  really  theirs.  What  element  in  the 
true  policy  of  life  does  this  man  lack,  or  what  ele- 
ment does  he  possess  which  makes  his  life  a  failure  ? 
Remembering,  further,  that  each  life  among  all 
lives  has  its  part,  that  this  part  is  a  unique  one, 
and  that  the  player  of  it  must  do  a  particular  thing 


CERTAINTY  AND  UNCERTAINTY         93 

in  order  that  it  may  contribute  its  share  to  the  whole 
and  be  in  harmony  with  all;  remembering  that  any 
failure  on  the  part  of  one  life  affects  all,  and  that 
life  itself  is  too  short  in  any  single  case  to  permit 
many  parts  to  be  assigned  to  a  single  life,  even  if 
they  are  fittingly  assigned;  remembering  that  it  takes 
time  to  fit  one's  self  into  one's  surroundings,  even 
when  the  supposition  is  that  one  has  found  one's  true 
place,  and  that  skill  also  is  required  in  order  that 
the  adjustment  of  each  part  to  other  parts  may  be 
complete — picture  to  yourself  that  other  man  who 
in  each  successive  month  or  year  imagines  that  his 
work  is  something  different  from  that  which  he  has 
been  pursuing;  who  imagines  that  his  neighbor's 
place  is  that  which  he  was  intended  to  occupy,  and 
forthwith  makes  effort  to  secure  that  place;  who 
today  is  here,  tomorrow  there,  moving  from  one 
point  to  another,  regardless  of  the  fact  that  he  is  one 
of  many  and  must  connect  himself  with  others  of 
his  group  in  order  that  the  work  of  the  group  may 
be  successful;  who  jumps  from  this  path  to  that, 
little  appreciating  that  he  is  perhaps  going  farther 
and  farther  away  from  the  true  path;  who  does  not 
seem  to  understand  that  he  is  mingling  and  con- 
founding that  which,  though  complicated,  was  defi- 
nite and  distinct;  who  finds  himself,  when  he  stops 
to  consider  the  situation,  moving  in  a  circle,  and  not 
in  a  direction  which  would  have  indicated  progress; 
who  is  ready  at  any  time  and  under  any  circum- 


94       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

stances  to  change  or  modify  his  course,  moved  as 
he  is  by  any  wind  that  blows.  What  element  in 
the  true  policy  of  life  does  this  man  lack,  or  what 
element  does  he  possess,  which  makes  his  life  a 
failure  ? 

I  have  used  general  terms  because  I  did  not  wish 
to  specify  any  one  of  the  many  realms  of  life's 
activity.  One's  policy  will  probably  be  the  same, 
whether  in  business,  political,  or  religious  life.  For 
the  sake  of  this  general  application,  I  may  be  allowed 
to  use  general  terms  with  which  to  designate  these 
elements  in  the  policy  of  life.  In  one  of  the  cases 
described  there  was  a  fixity  and  rigidity,  a  self- 
satisfaction  and  unwillingness  to  put  forth  effort,  a 
lack  of  flexibility.  Here  belong  one-half  of  life's 
failures,  the  occasion  of  the  failure  being  an  un- 
warranted certainty  that  what  one  has  is  all  that  is 
worth  having;  that  what  one  knows  is  the  whole 
truth;  that  what  one  does  is  the  right  thing  to  do; 
a  certainty  based  upon  lack  of  sufficient  evidence; 
a  certainty  involving  immense  risk  to  everyone  pos- 
sessed by  it. 

The  dangers  of  certainty  are  many  and  serious. 
The  feeling  of  certainty  begets  a  contentment  which 
dwarfs  and  stunts  the  life  and  soul  of  man;  an  in- 
difference to  truth  which  condemns  before  its  utter- 
ance every  new  form  of  statement,  every  new  phase 
of  conception;  a  fixity  of  thought  which  soon  comes 
to  be  obstinacy  and  prejudice;  a  lack  of  sympathy 


CERTAINTY  AND  UNCERTAINTY         95 

which  dries  up  the  heart  and  starves  the  intellect; 
a  literalism  which  shrivels  and  destroys.  This,  we 
must  grant,  is  the  most  natural  and  most  common 
tendency  of  human  life.  It  is  from  the  lethargy 
growing  out  of  this  that  we  must  free  ourselves,  if 
the  race  as  a  race,  or  if  individuals  of  it,  are  to  ac- 
complish the  great  mission  of  the  Almighty.  The 
results  of  this  tendency  have  presented  themselves 
to  every  thinking  man  or  woman.  The  disposition 
to  shut  one's  eyes  to  the  facts  about  him,  to  accept 
without  sufficient  evidence  that  which  is  presented, 
to  fail  to  hold  these  things  subject  to  verification,  is, 
alas,  too  common  a  characteristic  even  of  the  leaders 
of  our  times.  God  forbid  that  I  should  say  any- 
thing which  would  seem  to  be  harsh!  But  when  I 
see  on  every  side  of  me  the  monuments  of  the  past 
revered  as  if  they  had  been  handed  down  by  God 
himself,  actually  erected  into  gods  for  worship, 
treated  with  a  reverence  and  a  holy  fear  worthy  of 
something  higher  and  better,  my  heart  sinks  within 
me  at  the  proneness  of  men's  minds  to  stand  still — 
a  tendency  as  great  as  is  the  proneness  of  the  sparks 
to  fly  upward. 

But  the  element  of  uncertainty  in  life  is  even  more 
mischievous.  Its  presence  leads  to  a  shallowness 
painful  in  its  weakness;  to  an  inability  to  grasp 
truth  even  in  the  simplest  form;  to  a  flitting  hither 
and  yon  without  purpose  and  without  result;  to  a 
dangerous  radicalism,  because  of  the  lack  of  strength 


96       RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

to  resist  that  which  is  plausible,  though  false;  to  an 
ignoring  of  the  lessons  of  the  past  and  a  blindness  to 
the  real  possibilities  of  the  future;  to  a  failure  to 
appreciate  the  existence  of  great  and  fundamental 
principles  in  accordance  with  which  life  and  all  that 
goes  to  make  up  life  shall  be  regulated.  The  lack 
of  honest  convictions  on  important  questions  is  a 
source  of  uneasiness  and  disquiet.  It  must  lead  to 
abject  dependence  upon  others  and  an  utter  aboli- 
tion of  that  feeling  of  independence  which  should  be 
the  characteristic  of  every  man.  What  more  pitiable 
spectacle  than  that  of  a  man  who  never  knows  what 
he  himself  thinks;  whose  life  is  one  of  credulity  and 
skepticism,  of  inconsistency  and  unfaithfulness  ? 

Here  belong  the  other  half  of  life's  failures,  their 
occasion  being  an  utter  uncertainty  as  to  what  one 
should  think  or  should  do,  or  should  be;  instability 
of  character,  for  which  no  better  symbol  can  be 
found  than  that  applied  by  Jacob  of  old  to  Reuben — : 
"unstable  as  water."  In  one's  contact  with  men  he 
finds  many  possessed  of  high  qualities  and  great 
ability  whose  lack  of  stability  makes  a  life,  that 
would  otherwise  be  most  successful,  an  utter  failure. 
The  absence  of  a  continuity  of  purpose,  the  inability 
to  adhere  to  a  plan  of  action,  counterbalance  all  else 
and  condemn  them  to  darkness  and  despair,  pro- 
vided they  have  a  disposition  serious  enough  to  lead 
them  to  understand  their  condition.  It  is  one's  busi- 
ness, and  I  think  I  may  say  one's  chief  business  in 


CERTAINTY  AND  UNCERTAINTY         97 

life,  to  succeed;  to  avoid  the  probability,  and  indeed 
the  possibility,  of  failure.  The  work  which  we  do  in 
school  and  college  and  university  is  intended  to  re- 
duce the  chances  of  failure,  or,  if  you  please,  to 
increase  the  chances  of  success.  It  is  not  impos- 
sible, of  course,  for  a  college  man  to  fail.  If,  how- 
ever, he  has  been  able  to  read  aright  the  commission 
which  has  been  given  him  by  nature — and  nature, 
that  is  God,  has  given  a  commission  to  every  man 
before  his  birth — he  will  have  attained  ideals  which 
will  enable  him  to  understand  this  complicated  sys- 
tem in  which  he  has  been  placed  and  to  overcome 
the  perplexities  of  the  situation. 

The  ideals  of  a  university  man  in  his  efforts  to 
advance  himself,  and  in  his  attitude  toward  those 
about  him,  should  be  the  highest.  He  must  steer 
clear  of  the  dangers  of  certainty  as  well  as  those  of 
uncertainty;  and  he  of  all  men  knows  that  the  world 
is  making  progress,  and  that  the  best  life  is  that 
which  is  lived  in  its  own  times  rather  than  in  those 
of  a  past  generation.  There  must  be  strong  convic- 
tion, and  sturdy  adherence  to  a  well-founded  opinion, 
if  anything  is  to  be  accomplished.  How,  now,  shall 
he  adjust  himself  to  these  two  elements,  each  of 
which  contains  some  truth;  either  of  which,  as  has 
been  said,  when  exaggerated  brings  disaster?  He 
should  first  of  all  repudiate  mere  partisanship.  He 
must  be  an  independent,  whether  in  matters  of  reli- 
gion of  or  politics.  He  must  not  be  a  sectarian  hi 


98        RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

religion,  a  party  politician  in  politics.  Such  adher- 
ence to  political  or  religious  creed  of  the  past,  because 
of  historical  or  local  influence,  cannot  be  justified. 

This  does  not  mean  that  he  shall  not  work  in 
connection  with  that  religious  denomination  or  with 
that  political  party  which  seems  to  him,  upon  the 
whole,  best  adapted  to  his  needs  and  necessities,  as 
well  as  to  his  conceptions  of  truth.  But  the  religious 
denomination  or  the  political  party  will  be  the  means 
employed  by  him  to  serve  God  and  his  country,  not 
the  end  of  that  service.  He  will  put  aside  the  pre- 
conceptions of  the  local  atmosphere  which  he  has 
breathed,  and  endeavor  to  reach  for  something 
higher.  But  he  will  not,  if  his  training  has  been 
scientific,  throw  away  what  he  has  obtained  before 
securing  something  which  shall  serve  as  its  substi- 
tute. He  will  above  all  things  go  beneath  the  sur- 
face and  aim  to  understand  the  foundations  of 
things;  for  he  will  soon  learn  that  it  is  only  upon 
strongly  built  foundations  that  later  work  of  substan- 
tial character  can  be  established;  or,  to  change  the 
figure,  that,  if  his  roots  grow  deep  down  into  the 
soil  the  tree  will  grow  above  and  beyond  the  narrow 
limitations  which  otherwise  might  have  been  set, 
and  that  the  tree  with  roots  reaching  far  down  is  the 
tree  which  stands  firm  and  is  less  disturbed  by  the 
storm.  He  will  live  and  think  and  act  in  accordance 
with  principle  rather  than  according  to  rule.  And 
here,  after  all,  lies  the  great  difference  between  the 


CERTAINTY  AND  UNCERTAINTY          99 

strong  life  and  the  weak.  There  are  laws  and  prin- 
ciples which  govern  our  lives,  and  the  life  that  dis- 
regards these  suffers.  The  petty  rules  and  regula- 
tions of  one  class  or  another  signify  nothing,  accom- 
plish nothing.  They  are  of  use  only,  if  at  all,  for 
training  where  the  mind  is  not  yet  developed,  or  is 
always  to  be  weak. 

Do  you  think  that  I  have  not  had  in  mind  in 
these  few  words  the  religious  life  and  its  influence, 
and  the  contribution  which  religion  makes  to  this 
complexity  of  situation  and  perplexity  of  life?  I 
answer  that  in  my  own  mind  I  have  thought  only  of 
the  religious.  But  it  is  easier  to  present  religion  in 
the  concrete  than  in  the  abstract  and  so,  in  closing, 
I  present  to  you  the  concrete  example  of  one  who 
knew,  as  no  other  man  has  known,  the  complicated 
structure  of  the  universe  and  man's  peculiar  relation 
to  it ;  who  experienced,  as  no  other  man  experienced, 
the  perplexities  and  bewilderments  and  wretched- 
ness of  this  our  life  upon  earth ;  who  steered  his  way 
through  the  midst  of  all  the  dangers  which  attend 
the  life  of  one  standing  firmly  for  his  convictions; 
who  represented  to  the  world  new  thoughts  and  new 
conceptions,  and  who  gained  reproach  and  death 
because  of  his  lack  of  adherence  to  the  old;  who 
trampled  upon  the  beliefs  of  his  time,  repudiated  the 
teachings  of  his  fathers,  introduced  the  sword  of  con- 
tention among  his  brethren,  climbed  high  above  the 
narrow  and  inconsiderate  prejudices  of  his  country- 


ioo     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

men,  reached  far  down  beneath  the  surface  to  dis- 
cover and  to  proclaim  principles,  the  adoption  of 
which  should  shake  to  their  very  foundations  the 
institutions  of  the  world.  Who  was  this  man? 
Jesus  Christ — the  ideal  of  a  humanity  into  which 
divinity  had  been  breathed ;  in  whom  the  complexity 
of  life  is  lost,  unity  and  simplicity  taking  the  place 
of  it ;  in  whom  the  perplexities  of  life  find  their  solu- 
tion. 

Do  we  know  this  man  Christ  Jesus  ?  For  not  to 
know  him  is  not  to  know  the  true  philosophy  of  his- 
tory, and  to  be  ignorant  of  the  very  purpose  of  our 
existence.  We,  who  have  gathered  here  this  after- 
noon, are  students.  Let  us  see  to  it  that  we  remain 
students.  And  may  I  suggest,  what  surely  has  been 
suggested  many  times  before,  that  one  subject  of  our 
study  during  what  is  left  us  of  life,  indeed  the  subject, 
shall  be  this  perfect  exemplification  of  the  life  and 
character  of  an  educated  man;  and  that  the  purpose 
of  our  study,  as  well  as  the  purpose  of  our  lives, 
shall  be  not  to  treat  as  known  that  which  is  uncer- 
tain, and  not  to  hesitate  in  respect  to  that  which  is 
certain. 


VIII 
OUR  INTELLECTUAL   DIFFICULTIES 

WE  are  all  interested  in  the  progress  and  growth 
of  the  principles  of  Christianity.  There  may  be 
differences  among  us  in  respect  to  the  application 
of  some  of  these  principles;  but  in  reference  to  their 
substance,  and  in  reference  to  the  importance  of 
promulgating  them,  we  are  agreed.  We  are  all 
likewise  interested  in  the  work  of  higher  education. 
As  instructors  and  students,  as  parents  and  friends, 
we  are  closely  connected  with  a  great  cause — one 
only  less  important  than  that  of  Christianity  itself, 
a  cause  which,  indeed,  may  not  be  separated  from 
the  highest  life  and  teaching  of  Christianity.  But 
we  have  noticed  that  at  times,  and  in  the  case  of 
certain  individuals,  perhaps  even  in  ourselves,  there 
has  arisen  what  may  have  seemed  to  be  a  conflict 
between  these  two  interests — the  religious  and  the 
intellectual  life. 

At  times  in  the  history  of  the  church,  men  have 
reached  conclusions  in  their  investigation  of  great 
themes  which  have  been  adjudged  irreconcilable 
with  the  creeds  of  the  church,  and  these  men  have 
been  made  to  suffer,  even  death.  At  certain  periods 
in  the  history  of  some  of  our  denominations,  the 


102      RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

people  as  a  whole  have  been  afraid  of  higher  learning 
and  have  frowned  upon  it.  And  the  day  of  this  evil 
is  not  yet  entirely  past. 

But  what  I  wish  to  speak  of  here  are  certain 
difficulties  into  which  those  who  are  engaged  in 
higher  studies  sometimes  fall.  They  are  especially 
the  difficulties  of  university  men  and  women, 
although  many  outside  of  the  university  circle  have 
to  struggle  with  them;  for  is  it  not  true  that  men  who 
think,  whether  in  or  out  of  the  university,  belong  to 
one  great  family  ? 

The  first  one  is  the  disposition  to  doubt,  a  dispo- 
sition which  characterizes  most  men,  whatever  may 
have  been  one's  Christian  experience,  or  even  if  one 
has  had  no  such  experience.  The  time  when  we 
first  began  to  see  things  from  the  new  point  of  view 
may  have  been  very  definite — so  definite  that  we 
can  remember  the  hour  and  place  when  our  thoughts 
were  turned,  and  our  lives  began  to  be  different;  or 
the  experience  of  change  may  have  been  so  gradual 
as  to  be  almost  imperceptible;  or  we  may  still  be 
looking  forward  to  that  time ;  but  in  every  case  there 
have  been  difficulties,  and  there  are  doubts.  I  use 
the  word  broadly. 

This  Christian  life  is  a  strange  thing;  with  some 
of  us  it  is  comparatively  easy  and  bright ;  with  others 
gloomy  and  hard.  We  pass  through  what  is  utterly 
incomprehensible;  we  grow  uneasy;  it  is  so  dark  at 
times  that  we  seem  almost  to  have  lost  the  light; 


OUR  INTELLECTUAL  DIFFICULTIES     103 

but  the  experience  of  those  unfortunate  ones  who 
never  have  had  even  a  faint  glimpse  of  this  light 
which  lighteth  the  world  must  be  darker  and  more 
wretched  still. 

But  these  intellectual  difficulties  are  certain  to 
exist.  No  man  who  really  thinks  can  escape  them. 
It  has  sometimes  seemed  to  me  that  to  think  and  to 
doubt  were  synonymous.  Certain  it  is  that  in  pro- 
portion as  a  man  thinks,  in  that  same  proportion 
questions  arise  the  answers  to  which  are  often  hard 
for  him  to  discover.  And  since  it  is  the  chief  busi- 
ness of  the  student  to  think,  he  need  not  be  surprised 
if  doubts  crowd  in  upon  him  thick  and  fast.  If 
one's  reading  does  not  lead  him  to  think  and  to  ask 
the  wherefore  of  things,  the  why  this  is  true,  if  it  be 
true,  and  the  why  this  is  false,  though  always  believed 
to  be  true — it  would  be  better  for  him  not  to  read. 
If  one's  reading  has  taught  him  to  think  about 
the  classics,  and  about  art,  about  science,  and  about 
history,  and  has  not  also  led  him  to  think  (and  I 
mean  by  the  word  "think"  the  asking  of  questions, 
the  testing  over  again  of  truth  supposed  already  to 
have  been  tested,  the  interposing  of  a  doubt  as  to 
this  or  that  thing  not  yet  based  on  sufficient  evidence) 
— if,  I  say,  one's  reading  has  not  led  him  to  think 
about  the  great  questions  which  are  connected  with 
our  religion  and  our  faith,  that  reading  or  study  has 
been  in  part  a  failure.  You  must  not  misunderstand 
me  when  I  say  that  unless  your  intellectual  work 


104     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

has  taught  you  to  doubt,  at  least  to  an  extent  which 
will  compel  you  in  self-defense  to  make  inquiries 
the  result  of  which  will  be  the  furnishing  you  a  basis 
on  which  to  rest  an  intelligent  faith,  that  intellectual 
work  has  not  yet  gone  far  enough.  Although  you 
will  meet  difficulties,  if  you  think,  do  not,  I  beg  of 
you,  stop  thinking  because  you  are  afraid  of  diffi- 
culties. They  are  certain  to  exist. 

In  the  great  majority  of  cases,  these  difficulties 
are  independent  of  a  true  profession  of  Christianity. 
Thus  you  are  not  to  suppose  that  because  of  their 
existence  you  cannot  become  a  Christian,  or  that, 
having  become  a  Christian,  they  will  cease  to  exist. 
They  exist  before,  during,  and  after  the  change  of 
heart.  Your  faith  in  the  essential  verities  of  Chris- 
tianity is  largely  independent  of  them.  Let  us  sup- 
pose that  you  and  I  are  Christians.  Certain  diffi- 
culties of  belief  arise — the  same  difficulties  for  both 
of  us.  You  will  probably  settle  yours,  if  at  all,  by 
one  method,  and  I  mine  by  another;  the  result  will 
be  one  thing  in  your  case,  and  quite  a  different 
thing  in  mine.  We  are,  however,  both  satisfied.  I 
may  think  that  you  are  wrong,  and  you  may  think 
that  I  am  wrong,  as  to  this  specific  point;  but  our 
faith  is  the  same.  And  so,  all  about  us,  Christian 
men  are  settling  their  difficulties  of  belief  in  many 
different  ways;  and,  notwithstanding  these  differ- 
ences, faith  remains  unaffected. 

Nor  is  this   all.    These  intellectual  difficulties 


OUR  INTELLECTUAL  DIFFICULTIES     105 

may  continue  to  exist  without  being  settled  in  any 
way,  and  still  one's  faith  may  remain  unaffected. 
Faith  in  Jesus  Christ  and  in  the  living  principles  of 
Christianity  is  not  bound  up  or  in  any  vital  way  con- 
nected with  the  outside  intellectual  difficulties  which 
are  all  the  while  presenting  themselves  to  us.  You 
have  your  difficulties;  some  one  else  has  other  diffi- 
culties. The  result  should  not  and  need  not  affect 
one's  active  Christian  life. 

But  suppose  that  you  are  not  a  Christian;  are 
you  waiting  until  all  difficulties  have  disappeared? 
If  so,  you  will  wait  until  the  end  of  life.  If  some 
good  friend  labors  with  you  until  he  has  persuaded 
you  that  these  difficulties  have  been  removed,  and 
begs  you  now  to  accept  the  Christ,  he  is  deceiving 
you;  it  is  not  so.  Do  not  allow  yourself  to  be  thus 
deluded.  Many  of  these  perplexities  will  continue; 
but  if  your  faith  is  real  and  simple,  they  will  grad- 
ually become  less  and  less  significant,  until  by  falling 
into  their  proper  places  they  will  leave  you  undis- 
turbed. Be  sure,  thus,  of  this:  if  you  wait  until  you 
are  argued  out  of  these  doubts,  you  will  wait  long 
and  hopelessly. 

And  now,  as  to  the  solution  of  these  difficulties. 
I  insist  that  they  are  independent  of  our  Christian 
life  and  activity;  that  we  may  be  good  Christians, 
and  may  rest  in  peace  of  soul,  without  having  settled 
them.  But  do  not  think  that  therefore  I  advise 
you  to  let  them  go  unsettled.  That  would  be  to 


106     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

stop  thinking;  and  to  do  that  you  must  cease  to  be 
a  student.  You  cannot  pursue  any  line  of  investi- 
gation without  coming  into  contact  with  Bible 
thought.  If  you  are  an  honest  thinker,  you  will  be 
compelled  to  make  an  effort  to  reach  definite  con- 
clusions. 

Nor  must  we  leave  the  resolving  of  these  questions 
to  the  men  who  deny  the  existence  of  a  God.  They 
are  not  to  be  left  to  be  decided  by  the  rationalistic 
skeptic.  It  is  the  province  of  the  thinking  Christian 
to  discuss,  and  in  due  time  to  settle,  them.  And  so, 
my  friends,  although  these  questions  are  separate 
from  a  simple  faith,  it  is  your  business  to  grapple  with 
them  and  to  settle  them,  in  so  far  as  they  can  be 
settled  through  honest  thought  and  work.  But  in  all 
such  work  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  first  comes  the 
effort  to  cultivate  a  Christian  life,  and  that  the  diffi- 
culties stand  second. 

Just  here  someone  may  raise  an  important  con- 
sideration. "How,"  he  asks — and  I  understand 
him  to  ask  it  honestly — "How  can  I  profess  to  accept 
that  about  which  I  have  doubt?  A  Christian  life 
is  inseparably  connected  with  a  full  acceptance  of 
Christian  doctrines.  If  I  cannot  accept  the  doctrines, 
how  can  I  lead,  or  profess  to  lead,  the  life  ?" 

I  answer:  I  know  that  life  and  conduct  are  affected 
by  opinion;  but  I  know  also  that  the  doctrines  neces- 
sary to  be  accepted  by  him  who  would  lead  a  true 
life,  are  not  many,  nor  abstruse.  I  remember  that 


OUR  INTELLECTUAL  DIFFICULTIES     107 

the  men  and  women  of  our  Lord's  times  who  accepted 
him,  and  in  him  found  rest  and  peace,  were  not 
loaded  down  with  theological  systems;  and,  still 
further,  that  their  theological  beliefs,  so  far  as  they 
held  such  beliefs,  were  made  up  largely  of  the 
ephemeral  notions  and  ideas  of  their  day.  The  sum 
and  substance  of  the  Christian  faith  is  found  in  two 
words,  "Follow  me."  The  belief  in  this  or  that 
thing  may  be  important;  it  is  not  essential.  The 
simpler  one's  faith,  and  the  more  childlike,  the  more 
helpful  and  satisfying  it  will  prove  to  be.  Again, 
therefore,  I  urge  you,  do  not  hold  back  because  this 
or  that  thing  is  not  clear,  because  this  or  that  thing 
cannot  be  accepted.  Do  not  be  all  intellect;  allow 
yourself  to  be  moved,  at  least  to  some  extent,  by 
your  heart. 

But  I  have  drifted  somewhat  away  from  the 
question  of  the  solution  of  these  difficulties.  Let 
me  tell  you,  out  of  my  own  experience,  that  during 
several  years  before  personally  accepting  the  Chris- 
tian faith  I  studied  the  Bible  earnestly  and  carefully 
for  the  purpose  of  discovering  that  which  would 
enable  me  to  convince  others  that  it  was  only  an 
ordinary  book,  and  very  ordinary  at  that.  I  could 
not,  if  I  would,  here  tell  you  of  the  work  of  those 
years — years  spent  in  finding,  not  in  settling  diffi- 
culties. The  work  was,  of  course,  superficial,  and 
my  point  of  view  altogether  wrong;  but  those  diffi- 
culties were  still  there,  when,  after  a  while,  I  began 


io8      RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

to  see  some  faint  rays  of  coming  light.  And  as  the 
light  grew  brighter  the  difficulties  did  not  diminish 
in  number  or  in  character.  I  desired  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian, but  no  man  told  me  what  I  now  know,  and 
what  I  beg  you  to  hear  from  me,  that  I  could  first 
become  a  Christian  and  settle  the  difficulties  later. 
I  went  forward ;  yet  the  difficulties  remained.  What 
could  I  do  with  them?  Only  one  thing:  take  up 
again  the  study  of  the  Bible,  this  time  going  deep, 
and  working  from  a  different  point  of  view;  and  it 
was  not  long  until  I  discovered  two  things:  that  the 
difficulties  were  in  some  cases  altogether  imaginary; 
and  that  from  the  new  point  of  view,  and  with  the 
more  scientific  study,  principles  could  be  found 
which,  if  followed  out,  gave  to  the  whole  case  a 
different  aspect. 

This,  then,  was  my  experience;  and  among  others 
I  have  found  that  perplexity  is  due  almost  always 
either  to  ignorance  of  the  representations  of  the 
Bible  or  to  a  misunderstanding  of  its  contents.  The 
man  who  will  study  it  honestly  and  fearlessly,  regard- 
less of  the  mass  of  rubbish  which  tradition  has 
gathered  about  it,  but,  at  the  same  time,  with  a  spirit 
of  true  reverence,  will  find  his  imaginary  difficulties 
vanishing  one  by  one ;  he  will  find  his  real  difficulties 
assuming  a  new  and  more  manageable  shape.  He 
will  find  great  and  fundamental  principles,  of  the 
truth  of  which  he  will  be  so  confident  that  his  feet 
will  seem  to  be  standing  on  a  rock,  which  doubt 
cannot  shake. 


OUR  INTELLECTUAL  DIFFICULTIES     109 

Do  you  believe  the  Bible,  asks  someone,  because 
of  what  is  in  it,  or  do  you  believe  what  is  in  it  because 
it  is  in  the  Bible  ?  How  should  one  answer  these 
questions  ?  I  would  answer  yes  to  both  questions. 

When  I  compare  the  early  chapters  of  Genesis 
with  the  similar  stories  in  other  literatures,  and  note 
the  spirit  and  purpose  of  one  in  contrast  with  the 
spirit  and  purpose  of  the  other;  when  I  compare  the 
history  and  psalms  of  the  Old  Testament  with  the 
history  and  psalms  of  the  old  Assyrians ;  when  I  study 
the  story  of  the  life  of  Christ,  a  story  beside  which 
no  other  story  may  be  placed;  when  I  see  what  the 
Bible  has  done  for  humanity  and  what  it  is  today 
doing — I  can  say  most  strongly,  I  believe  the  Bible 
because  I  find  it  to  be  a  collection  of  books  that  have 
stood  the  test  of  time. 

But  let  me  turn  it  around.  I  believe  also  what 
is  in  the  Bible  because  it  is  there.  To  be  sure,  I 
reserve  the  right  for  myself  to  decide  that  one  book 
of  the  collection  has  more  of  religious  truth  in  it 
than  another.  Who,  for  example,  would  deny  that 
the  ninetieth  psalm  was  not  more  helpful  than  the 
first  chapter  of  Chronicles  ?  I  reserve  the  right 
also  to  decide  whether  this  or  that  book  is  really 
to  be  taken  as  one  of  the  collection.  Luther  exercised 
this  privilege.  Why  should  I  not  enjoy  it  also  ?  I 
reserve  the  right,  still  further,  to  decide  for  myself 
in  what  way  I  shall  interpret  this  passage  or  that. 
When  I  read: 


no     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  L[FE 

"The  mountains  skipped  like  rams, 
The  little  hills  like  lambs," 

I  am  at  liberty  to  believe  that  it  is  poetry  and  not  to 
be  taken  literally.  So  likewise  when  I  read, 

"Sun,  stand  thou  still  upon  Gibeon, 
And  thou,  moon,  in  the  valley  of  Ajalon ! 
And  the  sun  stood  still  and  the  moon  stayed, 
Until  the  nation  had  avenged  themselves  of  their  enemies," 

and  see  that  it  is  poetry,  as  it  is  shown  to  be  in  the 
Revised  Version,  and  that  it  is  obviously  quoted 
from  that  ancient  collection  of  poetical  pieces,  the 
book  of  Jasher,  I  understand  that  I  may  believe  the 
Bible,  without  believing  at  the  same  time  that  the 
sun  and  moon  stood  still. 

Thus  I  find  upon  investigation  that  if  it  be  prop- 
erly interpreted,  what  the  Bible  says  is  true;  I  could, 
therefore,  easily  believe  that  the  things  which  are 
in  it  are  true  because  they  are  there. 

But  I  do  not  wonder  sometimes  that  some  of  our 
students  and  investigators  have  thrown  the  Bible 
aside.  Here  is  the  situation :  In  childhood  they  were 
taught  ideas  concerning  the  Bible  which  were  in 
keeping  with  their  ability  to  comprehend  the  subject. 
As  the  years  passed,  the  childish  conceptions  relating 
to  other  subjects  were  displaced  by  more  mature 
conceptions ;  the  child  grew  to  be  a  man.  As  a  man, 
however,  he  is  unable  to  accept  the  teachings  given 
him  when  a  child.  And,  meanwhile,  he  has  not 
been  given  other,  better,  and  more  mature  instruc- 


OUR  INTELLECTUAL  DIFFICULTIES     in 

tion.  The  old  is  gone;  there  is  no  new  to  take  its 
place.  This  is  the  explanation  of  a  large  part  of  the 
skepticism  in  the  world;  and  the  responsibility  for  it 
rests  upon  those  who  have  given  direction  to  the 
curriculum  of  instruction. 

But  I  have  only  talked  about  difficulties  in  general. 
This  is  not  the  time  to  discuss  questions  of  miracles, 
or  the  question  of  inspiration,  or  the  question  of  the 
incarnation,  or  any  of  those  subjects  which  are 
ordinarily  supposed  to  cause  us  most  perplexity.  I 
have  limited  myself  to  talking  about  the  question 
as  a  whole,  and  all  that  I  have  said  may  be  summed 
up  in  very  few  words: 

1.  Have  your  difficulties;  go  on  having  them; 
suspect  that  something  is  radically  wrong  when  you 
cease  to  have  them. 

2.  You  who  have  not  yet  accepted  as  your  friend 
and  guide  the  Christ  who  lived  and  died  for  all  men, 
do  not  wait  for  a  time  when  these  difficulties  will 
grow  less.     Until  you  take  this  step,  you  may  hope 
for  nothing.     That  step  taken,  all  the  rest,  in  time, 
will  follow. 

3.  You  who  have  cast  your  lot  with  the  church, 
remember  that  these  difficulties  need  not,  must  not, 
interfere  with  your  Christian  work  and  life.     It  is 
a  mistake  to  suppose,  as  many  do,  that  when  diffi- 
culties begin  to  arise,  and  faith  to  grow  weak,  you 
should  forsake  communion  with  God  and  association 
with  his  people  until  your  faith  grows  strong  again. 


ii2      RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

This,  of  all  times,  is  when  you  need  such  help  as  only 
prayer  and  Christian  activity  can  furnish. 

For  relief  from  difficulties  of  every  kind,  whether 
of  life  or  thought;  for  a  help  which  may  always  be 
obtained ;  for  a  rock  on  which  firm  standing-ground 
may  be  gained — go  to  the  Bible ;  not  as  to  some  talis- 
man possessed  of  magic  power,  but  as  to  a  book  con- 
taming  story  after  story  which  tells  of  God's  dealings 
with  man;  to  a  book  containing  precept  upon  pre- 
cept, richer  in  truth  than  any  other  of  the  world's 
possessions — a  book  which  will  guide  your  thought 
unfailingly  to  the  only  source  of  wisdom,  to  the 
source  of  all  wisdom — to  God. 


IX 

THE    COLLEGE    EXPERIENCE    AN 
EPITOME    OF   LIFE 

EVERYTHING  repeats  itself.  The  experience  of 
today  is  only  that  which  happened  yesterday;  and 
our  experience  of  yesterday  was  much  the  same  as 
that  of  men  who  lived  six  or  seven  thousand  years 
ago.  The  child  before  birth  repeats  every  stage 
of  that  long  ascent  from  the  lowest  life  to  the  highest 
which  culminates  in  man.  The  child  after  birth 
repeats  every  stage  of  that  long  process  by  which 
primitive  man  has  become  civilized  man.  The 
college  life,  with  its  temptations  and  struggles, 
with  its  successes  and  failures,  with  its  ambitions  and 
despairs,  is  an  epitome  of  that  larger  life  which 
men  are  said  to  live  when  they  go  out  into  the  world. 
The  fact  is,  of  course,  that  when  one  enters  college, 
he  enters  the  world,  and  life  in  the  world  is  only  the 
repetition  over  and  over  again  of  the  life  lived  in 
college.  If  men  and  women  could  only  be  made 
to  see  this  when  they  first  enter  college,  how  different 
would  be  for  most  of  them  their  college  life. 

But  now  the  question  presents  itself  to  those  of 
us  who  are  soon  to  leave  the  University  precincts, 
and  take  up  work  in  another  and  different  atmos- 
phere :  What  have  we  come  in  contact  with  here 

113 


ii4     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

in  this  environment  that  will  be  repeated  in  the  new 
situation?  What  is  it  that  we  have  had  which  we 
shall  experience  again  many  times  in  later  life  ?  If 
I  mistake  not,  one  of  the  most  striking  things  in 
the  life  of  the  great  majority  of  students  is  the  nature 
of  the  difficulties  with  which  they  are  called  upon  to 
contend.  These  difficulties  vary  in  number  and  in 
character  as  they  do  in  life  itself. 

Some  have  had  to  fight  against  poverty.  And 
to  one  engaged  in  this  battle  the  obstacles  which 
confront  him  seem  at  times  insurmountable.  To 
go  through  college  under  these  circumstances  is  to 
be  deprived  of  even  the  most  reasonable  recreations ; 
to  separate  oneself  from  others,  for  lack  of  means 
to  share  the  necessary  expense  of  even  a  simple 
social  life;  to  sacrifice  the  very  necessities  of  living; 
to  submit  to  what,  under  other  circumstances,  would 
be  constant  humiliation.  Yet  this  struggle  is  under- 
gone by  a  larger  proportion  of  our  numbers  than 
is  ordinarily  supposed;  and  in  many  instances  the 
struggle  is  more  severe  than  the  facts,  as  seen  by 
those  on  the  outside,  would  seem  to  indicate.  The 
result  of  the  struggle  with  poverty  usually  is  either 
discipline  of  the  highest  character  or  death;  not 
infrequently  both. 

With  others  the  obstacle  which  stands  in  the  path 
of  progress  is  ill-health.  Strangely  enough,  the 
author  of  existence  has  not  always  seen  fit  to  adapt 
the  body  of  man  to  the  vigor  of  his  mind;  and  so, 


THE  COLLEGE  EXPERIENCE  115 

many  of  us  suffer  in  long-continued  agony  because 
the  body  will  not  fulfil  the  mandates  of  the  brain; 
because  we  see  as  if  within  our  very  grasp  possi- 
bilities of  life  and  living  which,  after  all,  are  as  far 
from  realization  as  heaven  is  from  earth.  This 
constant  failure  to  attain  what  in  all  reason  might 
have  been  expected  disheartens  us.  The  struggle 
is  indeed  maddening;  the  sense  of  disappointment, 
keen  and  ever-present. 

And  often  both  these  things — a  lack  of  means 
and  a  lack  of  health — are  coincident.  In  such  a 
coincidence  the  case  would  seem  to  be  hopeless; 
and  yet  even  this  combination  the  human  will  is 
sometimes  strong  to  combat  and  conquer.  But 
great  and  varied  and  numerous  in  college  life  as  are 
those  difficulties  which  have  their  origin  in  lack  of 
means  and  in  ill-health,  and  sad  and  pathetic  as  is 
the  result  of  the  struggle  in  many  cases  to  overcome 
them,  there  are  other  conditions  which  give  rise  to 
difficulties  greater  and  more  numerous,  with  results 
sadder  and  more  pathetic. 

There  are  sometimes  found  within  the  university 
circles  those  to  whom  nature  refused  to  give  a  strong, 
vigorous  mental  equipment;  those  who  are  styled, 
in  common  conversation,  slow  and  dull.  Conscious 
of  the  fact  that  nature  has  thus  despoiled  them; 
realizing  that  every  forward  step  costs  them  twice, 
or  even  ten  times,  the  effort  required  of  others  about 
them;  knowing  that,  at  the  best,  only  a  mediocre 


n6     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

attainment  is  possible,  these  souls  plod  on  and  on 
day  after  day.  In  these  cases  the  difficulties  of 
progress  are  magnified  tenfold,  since  for  them  every 
hill  is  a  mountain.  To  feel  during  each  moment  of 
existence  that  for  oneself  only  this  little  thing  is 
possible,  while  for  that  other  nothing  is  quite  impos- 
sible, is  to  have  one's  life,  whatever  kind  it  be, 
enveloped  in  a  cloud  of  darkness  the  density  of 
which  will  be  appreciated  only  by  those  who,  once 
swallowed  up  in  it,  have  passed  beyond  into  an 
atmosphere  of  comparative  clearness  and  rarity. 
It  is  here  that  strength  of  will  is  developed — the 
determination  to  do  or  die.  Many,  to  be  sure,  give 
up  the  struggle  in  an  early  stage;  many  others  fight 
as  with  death  itself,  and  in  the  end  triumphantly 
win  the  battle. 

I  wish,  however,  to  mention  still  another  source 
of  difficulty  which  confronts  men  and  women  in 
the  college  life.  I  have  referred  to  lack  of  means, 
to  lack  of  physical  endowment,  and  to  lack  of  intel- 
lectual equipment ;  I  have  in  mind  now  lack  of  strong 
moral  purpose,  or,  more  briefly,  lack  of  character. 
I  may  not  here  consider  how  this  deficiency  has  arisen 
— whether  by  heredity,  or  from  the  sin  of  early  youth 
long  since  put  aside,  or  from  an  evil  habit  still  prac- 
ticed. Nor  do  I  wish  to  refer  to  those  men  and 
women  who  are  sunk  so  low  in  depravity  that  they 
are  unconscious  of  being  in  depravity,  or  who,  being 
conscious,  justify  themselves.  I  am  thinking  rather 


THE  COLLEGE  EXPERIENCE  117 

of  that  one  whose  ambition  is  to  be  good  and  to  do 
good,  who  knows  what  good  is,  and  who  really  seeks 
it;  but  who  is  nevertheless  morally  weak;  who  cannot 
withstand  temptation;  who,  now  and  again,  in  spite 
of  honest  effort,  in  spite  of  the  influences  with  which 
friends  seek  to  surround  him,  falls;  and  who,  when 
he  has  fallen,  is  conscious  of  his  degradation. 

This  man  or  woman  may  or  may  not  have  ample 
means  for  the  prosecution  of  his  work,  he  may  or 
may  not  have  the  blessing  of  a  good  physical  consti- 
tution, he  may  be  brilliant  or  he  may  be  dull;  at  all 
events,  he  lacks  moral  purpose,  his  conduct  is  not 
guided  by  moral  principle,  and  he  knows  what  his 
lack  is.  For  this  man,  just  in  proportion  to  the 
degree  of  his  consciousness  of  his  shortcoming, 
life  is  a  torture.  A  merciful  providence  has  decreed 
that  in  most  instances  in  which  there  is  moral  defect 
there  is  a  lack  of  consciousness  of  the  defect.  But 
this  is  not  always  the  case.  The  struggle  of  a  soul 
tending  thus  to  fall,  and  apparently  too  weak  to 
resist  the  impulse,  is  a  struggle  far  more  pathetic 
than  any  to  which  reference  has  thus  far  been  made. 
When  the  downfall  is  one  which  takes  on  outward 
significance  and  is  apparent  to  all  eyes,  the  man 
soon  leaves  college;  but  often  this  lack  of  character 
does  not  assume  an  objective  form;  it  may  manifest 
itself  in  secret  sin,  and  so  the  man  goes  on  and  on, 
now  rising  superior  to  it,  now  again  falling.  The 
details  of  such  a  contest  are  known  only  to  himself 


n8      RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

and  God;  except  when,  by  the  keenness  of  his  suffer- 
ing, he  is  impelled  to  lay  bare  to  some  friend  the 
secrets  of  his  life  and  heart.  It  has  been  my  privilege 
to  hear  the  confession  of  many  a  soul  thus  burdened 
and  to  see  the  pressure  relieved  in  part  by  such  con- 
fession. 

If,  then,  the  story  which  we  hear  almost  every 
day  of  some  worthy  student's  lack  of  food  is  sad; 
if  the  picture  of  disease,  and  sometimes  of  death 
itself,  seen  on  the  face  of  one  striving  for  intellectual 
advancement,  is  still  more  sad;  if  the  desperate 
determination,  hopeless  yet  full  of  confidence,  of 
those  whom  nature  has,  as  it  were,  branded  with  a 
mark  that  tells  of  something  lacking  which  neither 
money,  nor  love,  nor  work  may  supply — this  dogged 
determination  to  fight  at  all  hazards  and  at  every 
cost — is  pathetic;  how  much  more  sad  and  pathetic, 
indeed  how  truly  pitiful,  is  the  struggle  of  the  man 
who  has  been  denied  the  strength  to  maintain  him- 
self in  the  path  in  which  he  knows  he  ought  to  walk 
— the  path  of  moral  rectitude? 

These  difficulties  I  mention  are,  however,  not  the 
only  ones  that  you  have  encountered  in  college  and 
university  life.  Some  of  you  have  had  too  large  an 
allowance  of  money.  Some  of  you  have  found  the 
very  vigor  and  physical  strength  with  which  nature 
endowed  you  a  source  of  trouble  and  difficulty.  In 
many  cases  it  is  brilliancy  of  intellect  that  proves  a 
man's  ruin;  and  sometimes  it  is  the  effort  to  be  con- 
scientious that  brings  the  most  bitter  sorrow. 


THE  COLLEGE  EXPERIENCE  119 

These,  I  repeat,  are  not  the  only  difficulties  to 
be  met  with  in  college  life ;  but  they  are  the  chief  ones 
and  are  typical.  Not  all  of  you  have  had  to  contend 
with  these  difficulties;  but  there  are  few  men  or 
women  who  leave  the  university  without  having 
fought  some  of  them.  And  these  are  precisely  the_ 
difficulties  you  will  continue  to  encounter  in  the  days 
to  come.  Your  weakness  or  defect,  whether  material 
or  physical,  whether  intellectual  or  moral,  is  certain  to 
disturb  you  in  the  future.  You  have  been  poor  in 
this  world's  goods  today;  the  chances  are  that  this 
poverty  will  be  your  constant  companion.  If  you 
are  to  practice  law,  you  must  face  the  fact,  apparent 
on  all  sides,  that  the  average  lawyer  is  scarcely  able 
to  support  himself.  If  it  is  the  ministry,  you  are 
told  that  the  average  salary  of  a  minister  in  the  state 
of  Illinois  is  less  than  five  hundred  dollars  a  year. 
Are  you  to  be  a  physician?  Then  the  number  of 
young  physicians  who  actually  starve  while  they  are 
waiting  for  a  practice  to  grow  up  is  appalling.  Is 
business  your  choice  ?  More  than  90  per  cent,  of  all 
business  undertakings  fail.  Is  it  the  teaching  pro- 
fession ?  Listen  to  the  cry  which  goes  up  every  day 
from  the  hearts  of  the  teachers  of  Chicago  for  an 
increase  of  remuneration — a  cry  entirely  justified; 
and  yet  Chicago  teachers  are  among  those  who 
receive  the  highest  salaries  paid  in  the  profession. 
Whatever  the  field  of  work,  then,  which  you  may 
decide  to  enter,  the  gaunt  specter  of  poverty  will 


izo     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

pursue  you.  The  experiences  of  one  period  of  life 
are  but  repeated  in  another.  I  would  have  you 
remember,  however,  that  the  experiences  of  your 
college  life  have  prepared  you  to  meet  these  very 
conditions.  It  is  well  that  your  mind  has  been 
broadened,  that  your  taste  has  been  cultivated, 
and  that  your  capacity  for  enjoyment  has  been 
increased.  It  is  also  true  that  in  college  you  must 
have  learned  some  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice; 
you  have  been  disciplined  to  some  self-restraint; 
you  may  have  acquired  entire  control  of  self.  You 
are  an  example  of  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest.  Many  once  among  you,  weakened  by 
their  terrible  discipline,  have  fallen  by  the  way; 
you  have  been  strengthened,  and  with  the  strength 
and  courage  growing  out  of  many  victories  you  will 
be  able  to  take  your  place  in  the  world  and  main- 
tain yourselves,  when  otherwise  you  would  have 
failed.  You  will  find  the  same  difficulties  in  the 
outside  world  that  you  found  here;  but  you  will 
not  find  the  same  helpful  shelter  that  has  been 
afforded  you  in  the  college  environment.  To  be 
sure,  you  no  longer  need  this,  for  you  have  acquired 
a  strength  of  your  own,  on  which  you  must  hence- 
forth rely. 

This  same  principle  holds  good,  as  well,  for  those 
in  the  college  who  have  been  battling  other  diffi- 
culties, and  who,  as  is  indicated  by  the  honorable 
completion  of  the  college  life,  have  in  a  measure 


THE  COLLEGE  EXPERIENCE  121 

triumphed  over  them.  If  you  have  reached  this 
stage  of  life,  and  have  not  yielded  to  a  dread  disease, 
nor  been  discouraged  and  deterred  by  lack  of  bril- 
liant endowment,  nor  discomfited  in  your  struggle 
with  evil  habit  or  weak  moral  purpose,  you  enter 
upon  the  next  stage  of  life  with  a  capital  of 
strength  which,  if  not  drawn  upon  too  unguardedly, 
will  continue  to  grow,  and  with  the  gradual 
accumulations  of  interest,  will  soon  become  a  per- 
manent insurance  against  failure.  This  means 
success;  for  success  simply  consists  in  always 
maintaining  a  reserve,  whether  of  money,  or  intel- 
lect, or  spiritual  power;  and  in  allowing  that  reserve 
to  increase.  Every  man  who  finishes  rightfully 
the  college  or  university  course  is  a  man  who  has 
saved  more  of  his  income  than  he  has  spent,  and 
with  this  balance  to  credit  he  goes  on  practically 
as  before.  The  difference  is  that  he  has  a  balance 
to  credit.  If  you  have  no  balance  to  credit,  you 
are  slipping  through  college  without  the  right  to 
do  so.  Your  future  will  be  determined  by  the 
amount  of  this  balance  to  credit;  because  this 
balance  represents  the  foundation  on  the  basis  of 
which  you  are  to  work;  it  is  the  capital  which  you 
are  to  keep  invested;  it  indicates  the  measure  of 
the  discipline  which  you  have  secured.  It  may 
be  capital  in  money,  in  physical  strength,  in  intel- 
lectual power,  or  in  moral  force.  It  may  include 
some  of  all.  But  however  large  or  small  it  is,  and 


122     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

whether  of  one  kind  or  another,  husband  it,  and 
with  it  go  on  fighting  as  you  have  been  fighting. 

In  your  college  and  university  life  you  have  found 
many  restrictions.  Even  in  those  institutions  in 
which  the  largest  liberties  are  given — and  we  think 
that  this  institution  is  one  of  them — there  are  restric- 
tions, and  rules,  and  regulations.  Some  of  them, 
doubtless,  are  unnecessary;  some,  unquestionably, 
are  only  the  outgrowth  of  the  mind-wandering  of 
some  high  or  low  official.  But,  after  making  allow- 
ance for  all  such,  there  exists  a  residue  of  "red 
tape,"  of  form,  of  conventionality,  which  it  has 
been  found  necessary  to  observe.  There  has  been 
a  certain  routine,  unpleasant  perhaps  in  some  of 
its  features,  which  all  have  been  compelled  to  follow, 
even  though  every  effort  has  been  made  to  adapt 
the  details  of  the  institution's  policy  to  the  needs 
of  the  individual.  This  kind  of  thing,  however, 
is  what  you  will  find  all  about  you  in  life  when  you 
are  outside  of  the  university  walls.  This  is  what 
some  persons  of  a  peculiar  cast  of  mind  occupy  their 
lives  in  opposing — I  mean,  the  ordinary  conven- 
tionalities of  life.  The  man  who  has  never  enjoyed 
college  life  scarcely  knows  what  it  is  to  breathe  an 
atmosphere  comparatively  free;  for  soon  or  late 
you  will  learn  that  the  restraints  and  restrictions 
and  conventionalities  observed  during  college  life 
are  as  nothing  in  comparison  with  those  of  profes- 
sional and  business  life,  and  those  of  life  at  large. 


THE  COLLEGE  EXPERIENCE  123 

It  is  because  college  life,  even  when  strictly 
regulated,  partakes  so  much  of  what  is  some- 
times called  "the  Bohemian,"  the  "do  as  you  like" 
element,  that  men  in  after-years  invariably  look 
back  upon  the  days  spent  within  the  precincts  of 
their  alma  mater  as  the  happiest  of  their  lives. 
Constantly,  and  sometimes  very  roughly,  you  will 
find  your  head  set  directly  against  the  high  and  inex- 
orable wall  of  some  kind  of  conventionalism. 

It  is  unfortunate  for  the  reputation  of  institutions 
of  higher  learning  that  too  large  a  proportion  of 
those  who  have  enjoyed  the  privileges  of  freedom 
accorded  in  these  institutions  have  fancied  that 
they  might  do  away  with  much,  if  not  all,  of  this 
necessary  conventionalism.  These  representatives 
of  ours,  deploring  the  fact  that  they  might  not  live 
without  reference  to  the  happiness  and  comfort  of 
others,  have  so  ordered  their  living  that  the  very 
freedom  of  the  university  life  has  injured  them  as 
members  of  society.  In  general,  of  course,  the 
university  life  has  had  the  other  effect.  One  of 
its  greatest  lessons  has  been  aptly  described  by  the 
Psalmist  who,  though  he  never  knew  of  a  university 
in  the  modern  sense,  was  certainly  well  informed 
concerning  the  purpose  of  a  religious  society: 
"  Behold  how  beautiful  and  how  fair  it  is  for  brethren 
to  dwell  together  in  unity." 

This  living  together  of  brother  and  sister  employed 
in  the  one  work  of  search  for  truth,  older  and  younger 


124     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

working  side  by  side,  each  contributing  his  part  to 
the  work  as  a  whole,  is  a  picture  of  that  ideal  life 
in  which  every  man  and  every  woman  will  work  in 
the  spirit  of  brotherhood.  The  few  occasions  when 
the  younger  brotherhood  in  the  university  finds 
itself  at  variance  with  the  older,  the  few  restrictions 
which  here  and  there  are  placed  by  the  older  brother- 
hood upon  the  younger — these  will  prove  to  be  but 
survivals  of  ages  long  past,  and  themselves  will 
disappear  in  that  joyous  time  which  will  first  be 
realized  on  earth  in  the  college  environment — the 
time  when  all  men  shall  see,  as  they  walk  shoulder 
to  shoulder,  that  the  restrictions  their  alma  mater  put 
upon  them  were  but  part  of  their  preparation  for 
the  still  greater  ones  of  the  life  in  the  larger  world. 

But  difficulties  and  restrictions  make  up  only 
one  side  of  the  life  which  you  have  been  living  here 
in  the  university.  There  is  another  side,  the  ele- 
ments of  which  will  be  found  also  to  repeat  them- 
selves in  the  life  outside.  I  may  speak  of  only  two 
of  these. 

The  following  statement  I  hold  to  be  literally  true : 
In  the  college  as  in  no  other  circle  among  human- 
kind do  the  members  show  so  consistently  and  so 
fully  a  true  appreciation  of  each  other's  efforts;  in 
no  other  circle  are  the  members  so  alert  and  so 
magnanimous  in  their  appreciation  of  the  successes 
of  their  fellow-members.  When  one  of  you  has 
shown  special  excellence  in  class-room  work,  there 


THE  COLLEGE  EXPERIENCE  125 

were  several  ways  of  having  that  success  noted,  of 
recognizing  it,  and  of  proclaiming  it  to  every  other 
member  of  the  brotherhood.  Honors  and  prizes, 
scholarships  and  fellowships,  are  only  the  expression 
of  appreciation.  The  same  is  true  in  athletic  work, 
though  here  indeed  appreciation  goes  even  too  far; 
and  there  arises  something  which  too  closely  resem- 
bles hero-worship.  Nor  is  this  appreciation  con- 
fined to  the  student  ranks.  Among  the  instructors 
it  takes  the  form  of  promotion  and  honors.  Still 
further,  this  appreciation  is  by  no  means  limited  to 
official  recognition;  the  largest  part,  and  the  part 
most  esteemed,  is  that  which  is  expressed  so  fre- 
quently in  a  word  spoken  privately,  or  perhaps  only 
in  the  glance  of  the  eye  or  the  pressure  of  the  hand. 
This  it  is  that  makes  life  worth  living.  It  is  not 
praise  that  most  men  long  for,  but  rather  the  word 
or  the  sign  of  appreciation;  and  sooner  or  later  every 
man  in  the  university  circle  who  does  aught  to  make 
him  worthy  of  it  receives  it.  There  may  be  delays 
growing  out  of  misunderstanding;  but  in  time  true 
worth  will  be  seen  and  understood  for  its  real  value. 
How  is  it  now  in  the  world  outside  ? 

I  cannot  count  myself  among  those  who  believe 
that  in  general  the  world  fails  to  judge  a  man  at  his 
true  worth.  The  world,  of  course,  makes  great 
blunders.  Not  a  little  of  its  appreciation  is  lav- 
ished where  it  does  not  belong;  and  there  are  too 
many  the  true  estimate  of  whom  comes  after  long 


126     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

lapse  of  time.  But,  in  spite  of  occasional  blunders, 
the  majority  of  which  time  corrects,  the  world  in 
general  treats  a  man  according  to  his  deserts.  To 
hold  any  other  view  is  to  adopt  the  philosophy  of 
pessimism.  But  the  words  "in  general"  are  very 
indefinite.  The  question  is:  What  may  you  expect 
in  the  way  of  appreciation?  I  answer:  You  will 
receive  it  if  you  deserve  it,  and  if  you  need  it;  if 
you  give  it  to  others  when  it  is  deserved  and  needed ; 
and  if  you  do  not  indicate  that  you  are  reserving  to 
yourself  all  of  it  that  your  nature  is  capable  of 
expressing. 

It  may  be,  you  will  not  deserve  it.  This  will 
certainly  be  true  if  you  are  one  of  that  class  of  per- 
sons who  never  see  in  others  anything  worthy  of 
appreciation;  it  will  be  true  likewise  if  you  are 
thought  by  others  to  be  too  appreciative  of  yourself. 
It  is  just  here  that  college  training  shows  its  worth; 
the  college-trained  man,  however  successful  he  may 
be,  never  boasts  that  he  is  a  self-made  man.  The 
college  training  is  expected  to  teach  two  things:  the 
satisfaction  which  one  feels  in  being  shown  apprecia- 
tion. And  this  should  serve  as  a  constant  incentive 
to  exhibit  appreciation  of  the  work  of  our  fellows, 
in  the  proper  form  and  under  suitable  circumstances. 
But  college  training  is  supposed  also  to  teach  one 
such  a  sense  of  humility  as  to  make  undue  self- 
appreciation  impossible. 

In  mingling  in  the  world,  however,  do  not  allow 


THE  COLLEGE  EXPERIENCE  127 

your  college  experience  to  lead  you  to  expect  this 
expression  of  appreciation  to  an  undue  degree. 
Remember  that  the  circle  is  larger;  that  the  atmos- 
phere is  colder;  that  the  contact  is  not  so  close; 
that  competition  is  greater;  that  the  prizes  are  not 
so  numerous  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  con- 
testants; and  that  the  number  of  fellowships  is  small 
absolutely.  Remember,  too,  that  the  course  is 
longer  than  that  of  three  or  four  years,  being  some- 
times thirty  or  forty,  or  even  fifty;  that  it  is  for  the 
most  part  in  a  single  department ;  and  that  the  honor, 
the  mark  of  appreciation,  may  come  only  at  the  end. 

And  though  all  these  things  must  be  kept  in  mind, 
we  may  nevertheless  be  assured  that  true  work  and 
true  worth  will  sooner  or  later  be  recognized  at  its 
market  value.  More  than  this  we  cannot  ask; 
for  in  the  exchange  of  life  artificial  values  do  not 
long  maintain  themselves. 

There  is  one  thing  now  about  which  I  desire  to 
say  a  word.  Whatever  else  your  college  life  has 
been  to  you,  whatever  else  you  have  found  in  it, 
one  thing  has  stood  out  more  prominently  than  any 
other.  In  this  thing,  poverty  has  been  forgotten; 
by  it,  physical  and  intellectual  weaknesses  have 
been  corrected;  and  through  it  moral  purpose  has 
been  incited.  In  connection  with  this,  there  has 
been  no  restraint,  no  restriction.  It  was  this  thing 
which  itself,  more  than  all  else,  has  developed  in 
your  hearts  the  spirit  of  appreciation.  There  is 


128      RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

no  word  in  the  English  language  which  serves  in 
so  true  a  sense  as  a  synonym  of  college  or  university, 
not  even  the  well-worn  word  "discipline,"  or  the 
still  more  common  word  "education."  That  for 
which  college  and  university  stands  above  all  other 
things  is  opportunity. 

A  college  life  is  opportunity — opportunity  to 
grow  with  the  smallest  possible  number  of  obstacles 
to  growth.  This  is  true  even  for  those  of  you  who 
have  had  to  encounter  the  largest  number  of  obstacles. 
You  could  have  found  no  other  place  so  free  from 
obstacles.  College  life  is  opportunity — opportunity 
to  free  oneself  from  the  bonds  of  ignorance;  bonds 
which  seem  almost  hopelessly  fastened  upon  us; 
bonds  which  many  of  us,  indeed  all  and  the  very 
best  of  us,  are  able  to  remove  only  in  part. 
College  life  is  opportunity — opportunity  to  discover 
what  the  great  God  has  placed  within  us  in  the  way 
of  mind  and  heart ;  a  discovery  essential  to  life  itself, 
and  yet  one  which  so  many  fail  to  make;  and  the 
consequence  of  their  failure  is  something  worse  than 
death.  College  life  is  opportunity — opportunity 
to  see  the  world  of  the  past  and  of  the  present,  and 
from  this  sight  to  learn  how  best  one  may  enter  it, 
and  become  a  part  of  it  in  the  future;  opportunity 
to  note  the  mistakes  of  men  and  the  blunders  of 
nations,  and  to  profit  thereby;  opportunity  to  learn 
the  laws  of  God,  which  are  the  laws  of  life. 

But  however  true  all  this  is  of  the  college  and 


THE  COLLEGE  EXPERIENCE  129 

university,  it  is  just  as  true  of  the  life  that  comes 
after  the  university.  All  life  is  opportunity.  What 
you  have  found  in  college  you  will  find  now  in  the 
life  that  follows.  The  opportunity  may,  to  be  sure, 
have  lost  something  of  its  freshness;  it  may  no 
longer  seem  so  attractive;  realism  may  have  taken 
the  place  of  the  idealism  of  early  youth.  Yet  the 
opportunity  still  remains.  The  world  is  organized 
upon  a  single  principle,  viz.,  to  furnish  opportunity 
for  effort. 

There  have  been  moments  in  our  lives  when  we 
have  thought  ourselves  to  be  standing,  as  it  were, 
before  a  high  and  immovable  wall;  but  after  a  time 
the  wall  apparently  vanished,  and  we  have  been  able 
to  look  far  and  wide,  and  indeed  to  roam  almost  at 
will  in  the  fields  beyond. 

There  have  been  times  in  our  national  history 
when  darkness  seemed  to  have  settled  down  upon 
us,  so  dense  as  to  render  fatal  every  effort  to  act; 
but  in  each  instance  the  darkness  has  passed  away, 
and  the  sunshine  afterward  has  been  all  the  brighter 
because  of  the  darkness  which  preceded  it. 

There  have  been  periods  in  the  world's  history 
when  seemingly  everything  was  at  a  standstill; 
when  progress  of  every  kind  was  arrested;  when 
individual  and  nation,  so  far  as  man  could  see, 
were  impotent ;  but  such  periods  have  always  proved 
to  be  the  precursors  of  reform,  or  revolution,  and 
are  now  regarded  as  most  important  periods  in  the 


130     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

world's  progress — the  periods,  indeed,  of  highest 
opportunity. 

The  life  of  individual,  of  nation,  of  race,  has  no 
moment  in  which  opportunity  is  denied  it.  Life 
and  opportunity  are  synonymous;  it  is  only  in  death 
that  opportunity  ceases;  and  perhaps  death  itself, 
if  rightly  interpreted,  is  the  greatest  opportunity 
of  all. 

Do  not,  then,  be  over  anxious.  The  opportunity 
which  you  have  already  found  will  continue  yours. 
And  there  never  was  a  period  in  human  history 
when  opportunity  was  greater  or  more  glorious 
than  it  is  today. 

My  friends,  let  me  repeat  what  I  said  in  the 
beginning:  You  will  find  in  the  next  period  of  your 
lives  just  what  you  have  found  in  this  which  is 
closing — difficulties  and  restrictions  without  ques- 
tion, but  also  appreciation  of  true  worth,  and  oppor- 
tunity to  live  and  grow.  If  this  be  true,  it  behooves 
us  to  battle  on  against  the  difficulties;  to  make  all 
proper  and  consistent  effort  to  meet  the  demands 
made  upon  us  as  members  of  society;  to  cultivate 
a  true  appreciation  of  all  that  is  high  and  good  and 
noble;  and  to  regard  every  movement  in  life  as  an 
opportunity  to  be  employed  for  that  which  heaven 
will  regard  as  something  holy. 

When  the  next  great  change  in  life  shall  come, 
and  we  stand  on  the  other  side,  we  shall  find,  if  our 
great  teachers  have  correctly  informed  us,  no  diffi- 


THE  COLLEGE  EXPERIENCE  131 

culties  and  no  restrictions.  Every  act  will  be  worthy 
and  noble  and  deserving  of  approval;  and  every 
moment  of  every  life  will  be  an  opportunity  supreme. 
May  the  God  who  has  us  in  his  keeping  grant 
that  we  may  prepare  ourselves  for  this  life  beyond 
by  living,  as  we  may  live  it,  the  life  that  is  still  ours. 


X 

RELIGIOUS     BELIEF    AMONG     COLLEGE 
STUDENTS 

IT  would  be  curious,  and  something  very  sad, 
if  the  institutions  founded  by  our  fathers  as  training 
schools  for  Christian  service  should  come  to  be 
centers  of  influence  destructive  to  that  same  Chris- 
tianity. The  first  purpose  of  the  college  was  the 
defense  of  Christianity,  together  with  the  education 
of  men  to  foster  its  interests.  No  one  will  deny 
that  this  purpose  has  been  most  effectively  realized 
during  the  past  two  centuries  of  church  and  college 
history. 

But  what  is  the  situation  today  ?  Is  it  true  that 
there  has  been  a  remarkable  decrease  in  the  actual 
teaching  of  Christian  truth,  while  a  large  and  grow- 
ing emphasis  has  been  placed  upon  the  teaching 
of  branches  altogether  devoid  of  religious  character  ? 
Yes.  Is  it  true  that  of  the  students  who  enter 
college  only  a  meager  few  look  forward  to  Christian 
service  of  any  kind,  the  larger  number  having,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  but  the  slightest  possible  interest 
in  religious  matters?  Yes.  Is  it  also  true  that 
many  college  men  who  might  otherwise  enter  the 
ministry  turn  aside  to  teaching,  or  to  business,  or 
perhaps  to  some  other  line  of  work  because  of  the 

132 


RELIGIOUS  BELIEF  IN  COLLEGE         133 

influence  of  the  purely  technical  instruction  given 
in  the  colleges?  Yes.  Is  it  certainly  a  fact  that 
many  men  and  women  who  entered  college  as 
Christian  workers  in  their  home  churches  take 
little  or  no  active  part  in  church  life  after  they  have 
completed  their  college  work?  Yes. 

If,  now,  all  this  is  true,  or  even  half  of  it,  one 
need  not  be  surprised  to  find  the  feeling  frequently 
expressed  throughout  the  religious  world  that 
college  education  is  tending  to  decrease  Christian 
faith,  and  that  institutions  founded  and  conducted 
for  distinctly  Christian  ends  are,  in  fact,  educating 
their  students  away  from  the  church;  in  a  word, 
that  religious  skepticism  is  increasing  in  our  colleges. 
Is  this  conclusion  to  be  accepted?  The  answer 
now  is:  Yes  and  no. 

It  seems  certain  that  two  tendencies  are  constantly 
discernible.  The  first  is  that  many  men  and  women 
in  their  college  life  grow  careless  about  religious 
matters,  and  in  some  cases  actually  give  up,  or 
think  that  they  give  up,  Christianity.  This  class 
of  persons  will,  of  course,  include  those  who  before 
they  entered  college  either  had  no  interest  in  religion 
or  were  hostile  to  it.  There  has  been  a  peculiar 
and  a  fatal  lack  of  proper  religious  instruction  for 
the  young  during  the  past  twenty  years,  and  we  are 
just  beginning  to  feel  its  terrible  effects. 

But  there  belong  also  here  the  cases  of  those 
who  in  the  course  of  their  college  studies  are  led  to 


134     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

question  the  truth  of  the  teaching  received  in  early 
years  from  teacher,  parent,  and  even  pastor.  This 
teaching,  however  true  or  false,  was  accepted  on 
the  basis  of  authority.  The  scientific  attitude  of 
mind  cultivated  in  most  colleges  as  well  as  univer- 
sities distinctly  opposes  the  acceptance  of  truth  on 
the  basis  of  another  person's  authority.  The  college 
student  passes  through  an  evolution  both  intellectual 
and  moral.  He  is  taught  to  question  everything. 
He  is  brought  into  contact  with  men  who  are  investi- 
gating problems  in  every  department  of  thought — 
problems  supposed  by  the  rank  and  file  of  humanity 
to  be  settled,  or  else  of  the  very  existence  of  which 
the  ordinary  man  is  quite  ignorant. 

This  same  questioning  attitude  must  inevitably 
include  matters  of  religion.  Difficulties  are  certain 
to  arise,  and  unless  during  this  period  the  young  man 
or  woman  is  brought  under  proper  and  appre- 
ciative influences,  and  the  right  kind  of  assistance 
is  given,  skepticism  is  liable  to  pass  over  into 
infidelity.  The  question  of  miracles,  which  to 
many  minds  presents  no  difficulty,  to  the  young 
man  or  woman  under  the  influence  of  scientific 
study  becomes  a  matter  of  very  serious  importance. 
Unless  such  students  are  helped  to  see  the  true  rela- 
tion of  the  biblical  narratives  to  Christianity,  it  is 
almost  an  invariable  rule  that  they  pass  through  a 
period  of  great  religious  depression  and  uncertainty 
which  in  some  cases  results  either  in  a  religious 


RELIGIOUS  BELIEF  IN  COLLEGE        135 

indifference  or  in  a  half-cynical  contempt  for  the 
teaching  of  the  church. 

Then,  again,  experience  shows  that  besides  the 
college  students  who  do  give  up  entirely  their  faith 
in  God — and  there  are  very  few  of  these — there  is 
an  increasing  number  of  those  who  with  more  or 
less  good  judgment  are  training  themselves  to  dis- 
criminate between  what  they  regard  as  the  essential 
and  the  unessential  elements  of  religion.  The  effect 
of  the  college  environment  is  to  produce  this  habit 
of  mind.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  see  why  it  should. 
Education  that  does  not  help  a  man  thus  to  dis- 
criminate is  a  poor  education. 

Yet  in  this  separating  of  the  two  elements  of 
religious  faith,  the  college  student  is  almost  certain 
to  include  among  those  elements  which  he  judges 
to  be  unessential,  matters  which  many  persons  deem 
essential.  From  the  point  of  view,  therefore,  of 
such  persons,  these  college  men  are  infidels.  But, 
after  all,  such  a  charge  is  in  most  cases  too  sweeping. 
That  ebullition  of  omniscience  which  at  some  time 
in  their  career  marks  all  college  students  hardly 
demands  so  severe  a  term.  The  influence  of  scien- 
tific study  is,  therefore,  on  the  whole  not  unsettling, 
but  constructive,  i  If  men  believe  fewer  things,  they 
believe  fundamental  things  more  intensely.  If  they 
question,  it  is  for  tfiF"3SKe~  of  finding  true  answers, 
and,  finding  these  answers,  they  go  on  to  even  larger 
truths. 


136     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

^Thus  we  are  led  to  the  second  answer  which  we 
must  give  the  question.  Does  college  education 
lead  men  into  infidelity?  No. 

If  we  mean  to  define  infidelity  as  a  general  dis- 
trust of  the  existence  of  a  divine  being,  a  downright 
denial  of  immortality  and  of  the  truth  of  the  gospel, 
and  a  refusal  to  bring  one's  life  under  the  teaching  of 
Jesus,  I  maintain  that  infidelity,  so  far  from  increas- 
ing, is  rapidly  decreasing.  A  comparison  of  the 
religious  condition  of  the  older  colleges  today  with 
that  of  the  same  institutions  fifty  years  ago  will  show 
indubitably  that  there  is  in  them  today  a  far  more 
sturdy  belief  in  the  fundamentals  of  the  Christian 
religion.  Further  than  this,  there  is  to  be  found  today 
religious  interest  in  our  colleges  which  is  absolutely 
unparalleled.  It  is  not  only  that  Young  Men's  and 
Young  Women's  Christian  Associations  are  more 
prosperous  and  more  influential  than  ever  before, 
but  the  colleges  themselves  are  awakening  to 
their  responsibility  for  the  religious  life  of  their 
students.  Everywhere  we  see  the  establishment  of 
chairs  for  biblical  instruction;  the  formation  of  Bible 
departments;  the  institution  of  preacherships  espe- 
cially adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  college  mind ;  the 
outgoing  of  the  earnest  life  of  the  students  in  college 
settlements;  great  conventions  of  college  men  and 
women  under  the  direction  of  religious  leaders. 
The  college  student  who  grows  up  among  these 
influences  is  already  making  himself  felt.  From 


RELIGIOUS  BELIEF  IN  COLLEGE        137 

all  quarters  come  repoits  of  the  awakening  of  reli- 
gious earnestness  because  of  the  energy  and  broad 
vision  of  educators  and  si  rodents.  And  the  Religious 
Education  Association,  which  has  just  begun  its 
work  under  such  auspicious  circumstances,  would 
ten  years  ago  have  been  impossible.  It  is  unques- 
tionable that  the  life  of  students  today  is  more 
natural,  more  wholesome,  more  pure  than  in  any 
previous  period  in  the  history  of  education.  This 
fact  speaks  volumes. 

Infidelity,  let  us  thank  God,  so  far  from  increasing 
in  the  colleges,  is  being  conquered  there.  In  some 
particulars  the  Christian  faith  is  passing  through  a 
transitional  period,  but  it  is  not  being  destroyed. 
Possibly  it  is  growing  less  ecclesiastical,  but  certainly 
itJsgTowmg  more  practical.  Just  as  the  modern 
conception  of  education  is  growing  unscholastic, 
and  is  emphasizing  life  rather  than  information, 
so  the  religion  of  the  educated  man  is  becoming  less 
based  upon  theological  philosophy,  more  based  upon 
demonstrable  truths,  more  determined  to  find 
expression  in  better  social  conditions  and  larger 
social  sympathies.  It  would  be  a  most  disastrous 
situation  if  the  case  were  otherwise.  To  separate 
the  educated  man  from  the  religious  man  would 
mean  infinite  loss  to  the  world.  Our  colleges  may 
be  less  determined  to  support  some  peculiar  view 
of  God  and  theology,  but  they  are  producing  men 
and  women  who  are  not  content  to  live  in  a  universe 


1 38      RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

in  which  there  is  no  God.  If  education  tends  to 
lead  college  students  to  adopt  the  shorter  form  of 
every  creed,  it  is  teaching  them  at  the  same  time 
that  religion  is  an  elemental  fact  in  human  life,  and 
that  no  man  can  be  thoroughly  educated  who  does 
not  know  the  fear  of  the  Lord. 

Infidelity  has  always  been,  is,  and  probably 
always  will  be,  present  in  the  world.  The  greatest 
danger  to  which  the  church  today  is  exposed,  how- 
ever, is  not  the  infidelity  of  the  college  student,  or 
of  the  educated  person,  but  that  of  the  great  mass 
of  men  and  women  who  are  being  estranged  from 
the  church  because  of  the  unwillingness  of  Christians 
to  make  the  love  of  man  co-ordinate  with  professions 
of  loyalty  to  a  creed.  It  is  too  easy  to  distrust  any 
institution  which  teaches  that  one  must  love  a  God 
he  has  not  seen,  but  which  does  not  lead  a  man  to 
love  his  brother  whom  he  has  seen. 

The  evils  in  the  situation,  then,  so  far  as  college 
students  are  concerned,  may  in  great  measure  be 
avoided.  Let  me  point  out  three  things  which  the 
remedy  for  these  evils  must  include: 

Better  training  and  more  of  it  in  the  earlier  years. 
Every  academy,  college,  and  preparatory  school 
should  have  an  instructor  of  broad  sympathies  and 
large  knowledge  whose  entire  time  is  devoted  to  the 
work  of  preparing  the  boys  and  girls  for  the  changes 
through  which  in  college  life  they  are  to  pass;  in 
other  words,  a  biblical  chair,  to  be  filled  by  one  who 


RELIGIOUS  BELIEF  IN  COLLEGE         139 

will  anticipate  the  coming  struggle,  and  provide 
beforehand  that  which  will  be  of  service  at  the  time 
of  the  student's  crises. 

But,  besides  more  and  a  better  training,  there 
must  be  stronger  preaching,  and  a  different  kind 
than  there  has  been  during  the  college  years.  It 
is  absurd  to  suppose  that  the  same  kind  of  preaching 
will  satisfy,  at  the  same  time,  the  inquiring,  anxious, 
soul-disturbed  student,  and  the  self-satisfied,  inert, 
lifeless  person  of  the  same  age  in  an  ordinary  church. 
Nor  will  a  single  preacher  meet  the  needs  of  any 
considerable  number  of  students.  For  different 
temperaments  and  different  points  of  view  there 
must  be  preaching  of  different  men  and  different 
sympathies. 

And,  finally,  there  must  be  specific  teaching  of  a 
definite  character,  adapted  to  individual  needs  and 
necessities.  This  calls  for  chairs  of  Bible  instruc- 
tion in  every  institution.  These  chairs  should  be 
filled  by  men  who  rank  in  scholarly  ability  with  the 
men  who  occupy  the  other  chairs  in  the  institution. 
The  religious  side  of  instruction  must  not  be  ignored 
or  treated  half-heartedly.  The  best  talent  is  none 
too  good.  For  are  not  the  interests  involved  the 
very  highest? 

Let  us  not  croak,  then,  about  the  amount  of 
infidelity  now  in  our  colleges.  We  may  well  be 
surprised  that  it  is  not  even  greater  than  it  is,  when 
we  take  into  account  the  wretched  conditions  which 


140     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

exist  as  to  the  religious  education  of  boys  and  girls 
who  have  not  reached  the  college  age.  We  our- 
selves, as  parents  and  church  members,  are  largely 
responsible  for  such  infidelity  as  does  exist  in  college 
since,  in  most  cases,  we  have  failed  to  take  even  the 
most  simple  measures  to  prevent  it.  The  college 
can  hardly  be  expected  to  repair  the  mistakes  of  the 
home,  or  the  teacher  to  overcome  the  indifference 
or  irreligion  of  the  parent. 


XI 

BIBLE  STUDY  AND  THE  RELIGIOUS 
LIFE 

I  HAVE  come  with  the  sincere  feeling  that  I  have 
for  you  a  message.  I  may  be  unable  to  express 
this  message  in  forceful  style,  but  I  shall  use  my 
utmost  endeavor  to  make  it  definite.  If  it  does 
not  seem  to  be  new,  at  least  you  must  agree  with 
me  that,  since  the  days  of  Jesus  and  the  apostles, 
men  have  not  delivered  many  messages  altogether 
new.  Human  effort  has,  in  great  measure,  been 
expended  in  ascertaining,  explaining,  and  illustrating 
that  old,  old  message,  the  truth  of  which  has  become 
more  firmly  established  with  each  cycle  of  the  years. 

My  message  may,  then,  be  imperfectly  expressed, 
and  it  may  be  lacking  entirely  in  the  new,  the  strange, 
or  the  startling;  but  I  ask  permission  in  advance  to 
assure  you  of  two  things:  first,  that  the  positions 
suggested  are  those  which  I  have  tested  by  my  own 
personal  experience — an  experience,  you  will  allow 
me  to  say,  of  more  than  twenty-five  years  in  Bible 
study  and  Bible  teaching;  an  experience  likewise 
including  contact  of  the  closest  kind  with  young 
men  passing  through  almost  every  phase  of  life; 
secondly,  my  purpose  in  presenting  these  points  is 
sincere,  and  honestly  meant  to  be  helpful.  God 

141 


1 42      RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

knows  how  many  men  in  trouble  and  in  misery  it  has 
been  my  lot  to  meet,  and  in  some  small  way  perhaps 
to  help;  too  many,  I  can  vouch  to  you,  to  permit  me 
to  say  a  single  word  that  would  be  other  than  helpful. 

The  phrase  "personal  experience"  is  inter- 
changeable with  two  other  phrases  which  relate  to 
the  individual:  "religious  experience"  and  "religious 
life."  We  have  here,  in  fact,  a  specific  use  of  the 
word  "experience,"  as  applied  to  religious  feeling. 
It  is  something  through  which  a  man  goes;  some- 
thing, perhaps,  which  comes  to  him — a  feeling,  an 
emotion,  though  always  more  than  this:  it  is  a  state 
of  being,  a  life  in  which,  as  Emerson  has  expressed 
it,  the  "individual  soul  mingles  with  the  universal 
soul;"  or,  as  it  is  more  commonly  put,  in  which  the 
individual  soul  comes  into  sympathetic  touch  with 
God.  And  first  I  wish  to  remind  you  that  this 
religious  life  or  experience  may  be  regarded  from 
two  points  of  view,  one  largely  outward,  the  other 
inward. 

The  outward  expression  of  this  experience  is  seen 
in  all  that  enters  into  worship.  This  the  Psalmist 
had  in  mind  when  he  said:  "Bless  the  Lord,  O  my 
soul,  and  all  that  is  within  me,  bless  his  Holy  Name ! " 
This  is  the  effort  of  the  soul  to  express  its  feeling 
toward  the  higher  world  of  supernatural  or  divine 
existence;  an  effort  in  some  cases  so  simple  and 
unconventional  that  it  passes  almost  unnoticed,  in 


other  cases  so  elaborate  and  complex  as  to  bewilder 
and  confound.  The  various  acts  of  worship,  whether 
of  sacrifice,  prayer,  or  praise,  symbolize  in  various 
forms  the  inward  thought.  At  times  it  is  the  thought 
that  makes  effort  thus  to  express  itself;  at  other 
times  the  expression  leads  up  to  the  thought  and 
stimulates  it  to  a  higher  achievement.  As^ndividual 
temperaments  differ  from  each  other,  as  national 
characteristics  separate  great  bodies  of  humankind 
from  one  another,  so  the  outward  expression  of  the 
same  thought  frequently  varies,  and  men  finoT  many 
different  ways  of  giving  expression  to  the  varied 
religious  thoughts  which  fill  their  souls.  While 
these  outward  forms,  indicative  of  the  religious  life, 
are  all  the  time  undergoing  change  and  modification, 
it  is  evident  from  the  history  of  religious  thought 
that  they  are  carefully  to  be  observed,  not  merely 
as  we  observe  the  conventionalities  of  social  life, 
but  even  more  rigidly  and  more  sacredly,  because 
they  constitute  the  agency  for  the  preservation  of 
that  long  and  helpful  experience  of  religious  life 
which  has  been  transmitted  to  us  from  the  begin- 
nings of  human  thought. 

But  the  religious  life  finds  outward  expression 
in  another  form — in  the  system  of  belief,  or  the  creed. 
It  is  important  to  keep  in  mind  that  creeds,  as  we 
find  them  in  the  various  religions,  and  in  the  various 
historical  stages  of  Christianity,  are  mere  outward 
expressions  of  the  religious  life,  not  the  religious  life 


144     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

itself.  Here,  again,  we  find  the  same  simplicity  and 
the  same  complexity  as  in  the  forms  of  worship. 
But  no  one,  in  face  of  the  facts  confronting  us  every 
day,  would  dare  to  assert  that  the  religious  experience 
of  any  man  is  to  be  measured  by  the  definiteness  or 
vthe  completeness  of  his  system  of  theology.  Some 
of  the  purest  and  noblest  lives  ever  lived  were  largely 
innocent  of  even  the  simplest  knowledge  of  creeds 
or  theology.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  a  fact  easily 
capable  of  demonstration  that  life  and  character 
are  influenced  in  the  highest  degree  by  the  nature 
of  the  religious  belief.  In  illustration  of  this,  con- 
trast the  ancient  belief  in  the  bull  as  the  representa- 
tive of  deity,  and  the  revolting  consequences  which 
ensued,  with  the  more  modern  Puritan  conception 
of  God  and  the  sturdy  virtue  accompanying  it. 

What  a  childish  thing  it  is,  therefore,  to  raise  a 
hue  and  cry,  as  so  many  do,  against  creeds  ?  What 
man  is  there  that  does  not  have  a  creed?  His 
creed  is  but  the  outward  expression  of  his  inner 
thought.  No  doubt  in  our  day  less  emphasis  is 
placed  on  the  factor  of  belief  than  was  done  in  former 
times.  A  man's  life  in  civilized  countries  is  no 
longer  dependent  upon  his  theological  belief.  Nor 
is  his  position  in  a  particular  body  of  the  Christian 
faith  so  definitely  determined  as  it  once  was  by  his 
special  form  of  creed.  This  means  simply  that  we 
live  in  an  age  of  toleration.  But  though  men's 
beliefs  are  not  so  strongly  contested,  they  are  not 
on  this  account  any  the  less  vigorous. 


BIBLE  STUDY  AND  RELIGIOUS  LIFE     145 

Still  a  third  outward  form  of  expression  for  the 
religious  life  is  conduct  or  ethics,  for  we  are  told  that 
"pure  religion  an3^uno!enled  before  our  God  and 
Father  is  this:  to  visit  the  fatherless  and  widows  in 
their  affliction,  and  to  keep  himself  unspotted  from 
the  world."  The  external  acts  of  life — that  is,  one's 
conduct  in  relation  to  himself  and  to  his  fellow-men — 
constitute  perhaps  as  clear  an  expression  of  personal 
religious  life  as  can  be  found.  "By  their  fruits  ye 
shall  know  them."  The  regular  performance  of 
the  various  acts  of  worship  in  a  given  ceremonial 
reveals  some  characteristics  of  one's  religious  experi- 
ence; the  sincere  acceptance  of  this  or  that  form  of 
dogmatic  creed  is  also  a  token;  but  much  is  left  to  be 
discovered  from  a  study  of  the  ethical  standard  of 
life  which  a  man  holds  up  to  himself.  And  in  all 
these  ways  you  and  I  tell  the  world  something  of 
that  inner  experience  which  we,  as  Christian  men, 
say  we  have  passed  through  and  are  now  living. 

But  we  must  ask  ourselves  this  question:  What 
constitutes  this  inner  life,  this  spiritual  life,  this  reli- 
gious experience  of  which  the  acts  of  worship,  the 
formulation  of  creeds,  and  the  conduct  of  life  are 
but  the  outward  expression?  What  does  it  mean 
to  have  one's  soul  in  sympathetic  touch  with  God  ? 
What,  after  all,  is  actually  to  be  understood  as  being 
included  in  the  second  phase  of  our  topic,  personal 
or  religious  experience?  What  is  the  very  essence 
of  it?  And,  it  seems  to  me,  no  answer  to  this 


146     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

question  can  be  sufficient  that  does  not  show  the 
spiritual  life  to  include  these  three  elements :  a  con- 
sciousness of  sin,  a  fellowship  with  God,  and  a  love 
for  God. 

The  religious  experience  must  invariably  include, 
then,  a  consciousness  of  sin.  The  depth  of  the 
experience  may  most  accurately  be  estimated  as  in 
proportion  to  the  keenness  of  this  consciousness. 
No  modern  expression  of  this  feeling  is  more  vivid  or 
more  pathetic  than  that  of  the  Psalmist  of  old: 

There  is  no  soundness  in  my  flesh  because  of  thine  indignation : 

Neither  is  there  health  in  my  bones  because  of  my  sin. 

For  mine  iniquities  are  gone  over  my  head: 

As  a  heavy  burden  they  are  too  heavy  for  me. 

My  wounds  are  loathsome  and  corrupt  because  of  my  foolish- 
ness. 

I  am  pained  and  bowed  down  greatly; 

I  go  mourning  all  the  day  long. 

For  my  loins  are  filled  with  burning; 

And  there  is  no  soundness  in  my  flesh. 

I  am  faint  and  sore  bruised: 

I  have  groaned  by  reason  of  the  disquietness  of  my  heart. 

—Ps.  38:3-8. 

When  I  kept  silence,  my  bones  wasted  away 

Through  my  groaning  all  the  day  long. 

For  day  and  night  thy  hand  was  heavy  upon  me: 

My  moisture  was  changed  as  with  the  drought  of  summer. 

I  acknowledged  my  sin  unto  thee,  and  mine  iniquity  did  I  not 
hide: 

I  said,  I  will  confess  my  transgressions  unto  Jehovah; 

And  thou  forgavest  the  iniquity  of  my  sin. 

—Ps.  32:3-5. 


BIBLE  STUDY  AND  RELIGIOUS  LIFE     147 

It  is  hardly  worth  our  while  to  ask  whether  this 
consciousness  of  sin  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  recogni- 
tion of  a  high  estate  once  held  by  man,  but  long 
since  lost;  or  as  the  recognition  of  the  survival  of 
animal  conditions  out  of  which  in  his  ascent  upward 
he  is  gradually  but  surely  being  lifted.  It  is  the 
fact,  not  the  explanation  of  the  fact,  which  forms 
a  part  of  the  religious  experience.  Do  I  feel  this 
awful,  this  terrible  lack,  in  my  own  soul  ?  this  falling 
short  of  the  standard  clearly  fixed  before  my  eyes  ? 
this  tendency  to  be  dragged  downward  in  spite  of 
constant  struggle?  this  separation  by  an  almost 
impassable  gulf  from  all  that  is  high  and  pure  and 
holy?  This  is  the  question.  And  for  my  part,  I 
can  conceive  no  true  religious  experience  that  has 
not  in  it  some  such  feeling.  It  will  assume  varying 
forms  with  different  individuals,  and  even  entire 
nations  may  exhibit  characteristic  features  in  their 
experience  of  this  feeling;  but  it  will  always  be 
present,  and  with  it  a  corresponding  longing  for 
truth  and  righteousness.  The  latter  is  but  the  com- 
plement of  the  former.  One  is  the  negative,  the 
other  the  positive,  side  of  the  same  phase  of  feeling. 
To  be  sure,  in  some  individuals  the  negative  may 
seem  to  be  all  that  exists,  but  a  closer  study  will 
reveal  at  least  the  germs  of  that  insatiable  longing 
for  truth  and  righteousness  as  they  are  represented 
in  divinity. 

In  every  true  experience  there  must  likewise  be 


1 48      RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

found  a  sense  of  fellowship  with  God,  together  with 
that  realization  of  divine  aid  in  the  struggle  of  life 
which  has  brought  comfort  and  consolation  to  all 
who  have  experienced  it ;  in  more  common  language, 
trust  in  God's  goodness  and  mercy.  This  phase  of 
the  religious  experience,  which,  however  violent 
and  antagonistic  may  be  the  character  of  the  imme- 
diate situation,  always  brings  calmness  and  peace, 
is  in  striking  contrast  with  that  just  described  as 
consciousness  of  sin.  And,  again,  you  will  notice 
that  it  is  just  in  proportion  to  the  strength  of  the 
feeling  of  divine  fellowship  that  one  is  conscious 
of  sin.  It  is  the  touch  received  from  contact  with 
divinity,  the  appreciation  of  the  divine  character 
— in  other  words,  the  consciousness  of  God — that 
brings  one  to  a  proper  sense  of  his  own  utter  mean- 
ness, his  humble  lowliness  in  the  sight  of  his  Creator. 
But  the  sense  of  fellowship  with  God,  and  trust 
in  his  goodness,  do  not  constitute  the  highest  form 
of  the  religious  experience.  This  was  not  all  that 
religious  development  had  achieved  even  in  Old 
Testament  times.  There  had  come  to  some  the 
experience  of  love  for  God — not  fear,  nor  merely 
reverence,  but  a  love  represented  to  be  like  that  of 
son  for  father,  or  of  wife  for  husband.  Do  you 
recall  how  often  the  Old  Testament  prophets  tried 
to  picture  this  idea,  at  that  time  so  new  to  all  about 
them  ?  Was  not  God  a  father,  and  his  true  followers 
sons?  Are  not  the  latter  often  described  as  chil- 


BIBLE  STUDY  AND  RELIGIOUS  LIFE     149 

dren  that  have  rebelled,  children  that  "deal  cor- 
ruptly"? and  yet  again  as  those  whom  Jehovah 
draws  with  "cords  of  a  man,  with  bands  of  love," 
for  "like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children,  so  the  Lord 
pitieth  them  that  fear  him."  Was  he  not  also  a 
husband,  while  the  true  believers,  the  church,  were 
represented  as  the  bride,  sometimes  faithless  and 
adulterous,  but  after  all  to  be  "betrothed  to  Jehovah 
forever  in  righteousness,  and  in  judgment  and  in 
loving-kindness,  and  in  mercies  and  in  faithfulness"  ? 
And  then  the  bride  would  "know  Jehovah."  The 
full  significance  of  this  word  "know"  can  scarcely 
be  overestimated. 

Perhaps  in  these  utterances  the  fuller  emphasis 
is  on  the  love  of  God  for  man,  rather  than  man's 
love  for  God;  but  the  latter  is  always  included,  and 
finds  ideal  expression  in  the  words  of  another  psalmist 
"I  have  said  unto  the  Lord,  thou  art  my  Lord,  I 
have  no  good  beyond  thee"  (Ps.  16:2).  Wherever 
love  for  God  exists,  there  is  the  corresponding  feeling 
of  love  for  one's  fellow-man.  If  the  first  four  com- 
mandments of  the  Decalogue  deal  with  the  attitude 
of  man  toward  God,  the  remaining  six  have  to  do 
with  his  attitude  toward  his  fellow-men.  Hosea, 
whose  greatest  thought  is  the  love  of  God  for  man, 
is  no  less  urgent  in  his  plea  for  the  proper  treatment 
of  one's  fellow-men  than  was  Amos,  who  viewed 
the  Deity  chiefly  as  a  God  of  justice.  The  attitude 
of  Jesus  was  clearly  marked.  After  all,  the  greatest 


150     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

contribution  of  the  new  religion  introduced  by  him 
was  the  conception  of  love  instead  of  fear  as  mani- 
fested toward  the  Deity,  love  instead  of  selfishness 
as  manifested  toward  one's  fellow-men.  "But 
now  abideth  faith,  hope,  and  love,  these  three;  but 
the  greatest  of  these  is  love"  (i  Cor.  13:13). 

The  religious  life,  then,  although  expressed  in 
acts  of  worship,  articles  of  belief,  and  standards  of 
conduct,  really  consists  in  a  consciousness  of  sin  and 
a  longing  for  truth;  in  a  sense  of  fellowship  with 
God  and  trust  in  his  goodness ;  in  a  consciousness  of 
love  for  God  as  well  as  for  one's  fellow-men.  The 
religious  life  is  a  spark,  more'  or  less  brilliant — a 
spark  of  the  divine  life  in  man.  This  spark  may 
have  gone  out ;  or  it  may  still  be  in  existence,  although 
it  no  longer  appears  to  the  human  eye.  It  may  just 
be  growing  warm  and  bright  under  the  influence 
of  a  breath  blowing  upon  it,  a  divine  breath;  it  may 
be  very  bright  and  brilliant,  giving  warmth  and 
guidance  to  all  who  see  it.  Or,  if  we  were  to  use 
the  figure  of  the  seed,  the  germ,  the  thought  would 
be  the  same.  The  outward  expression  of  this  divine 
element  in  the  human  soul  may  be  indeed  imperfect. 
When  we  recall  the  history  of  individuals  and  of 
nations;  the  cases  in  which  even  reason  itself  has 
been  dethroned  as  a  result  of  the  experience;  the 
instances  in  which  immorality  of  the  grossest  type 
has  been  associated  with  it;  the  wars  and  contro- 
versies which  are  termed  religious — the  most  bitter 


BIBLE  STUDY  AND  RELIGIOUS  LIFE     151 

of  all  history;  when  we  recall  the  names  of  men  like 
David,  whose  hearts  seemed  right  with  God,  whose 
lives  nevertheless  represent  much  that  was  utterly 
degraded;  and  the  names  of  other  men  whose  lives 
seemed  pure  and  upright,  who  nevertheless  have 
shown  utter  disregard  for  all  religious  convention- 
alities— we  ask  ourselves  whether  in  all  this  there 
has  really  been  evidence  of  the  existence  of  religious 
life.  I  answer:  Yes,  but  the  spark  was  shining 
in  different  degrees  of  brightness,  or  perhaps  already 
so  nearly  quenched  as  to  appear  black;  the  germ 
was  exhibiting  different  stages  of  growth,  or  was  per- 
haps almost  destroyed. 

All  this  only  emphasizes  the  truth  that  one's 
conception  of  God,  one's  attitude  toward  him,  is 
the  fundamental  thing  in  life,  whether  it  be  that  of 
the  individual  or  that  of  the  nation.  Nations  have 
existed  whose  names  have  long  been  lost.  Of  some 
nations  only  a  name  has  come  down  to  us.  These 
have  done  nothing  for  the  world,  have  added  nothing 
to  its  history.  They  have  maintained  for  a  longer 
or  a  shorter  period  merely  the  dead  level  of  monoto- 
nous existence.  In  the  case  of  other  nations  the 
very  opposite  is  true.  Separating  themselves  in 
an  early  period  from  the  environment  of  which  they 
formed  a  part,  they  have  lifted  themselves  gradually 
away  from  that  environment  to  higher  and  higher 
planes  of  life  and  thought.  It  is  the  story  of  these 
nations  that  makes  up  the  world's  history. 


152     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

Of  the  many  millions  of  human  beings  that  have 
lived,  the  mass  are  as  if  they  had  not  existed. 
There  is  no  tangible  evidence  of  their  life.  They 
have  been  born,  they  have  existed,  and  they  have 
died — this  is  all.  There  has  been  no  contribution 
to  life  or  thought.  In  the  case  of  some,  however, 
this  does  not  hold  true.  Imbued  with  a  spirit  eager 
to  secure  that  which  was  higher,  driven  by  an  impulse 
growing  out  of  a  desire  to  help  humankind,  con- 
trolled by  a  power  which  they  themselves  could  not 
comprehend,  these  men  have  led  the  world  in  each 
step  of  its  progress.  What  now,  in  each  case,  was 
the  factor  which  differentiated  the  few  nations  from 
the  many,  the  few  individuals  from  the  masses?  I 
answer:  Their  conception  of  God.  In  proportion 
as  this  conception  was  true  and  clear  and  strong, 
in  that  proportion  did  the  nation  or  the  individual 
rise  out  of  darkness  into  light;  to  that  extent  nation 
or  individual  entertained  true  and  clear  and  strong 
conceptions  of  life  and  the  relationships  of  life,  of 
death  and  the  significance  of  death.  In  other  words, 
if  we  may  point  out  the  idea  concerning  God  which 
prevails  in  any  nation,  or  is  accepted  by  any  indi- 
vidual, there  is  furnished  at  once  the  key  to  the  laws 
of  the  nation,  the  habits  of  the  individual,  the  litera- 
ture of  the  nation,  the  soul  of  the  individual. 

If  you  would  tell  me,  my  friends,  what  you  think 
of  God,  or  the  relationship  which  you  sustain  to  him, 
I  could  determine  the  character  of  your  religious 


BIBLE  STUDY  AND  RELIGIOUS  LIFE     153 

life — nay,  more,  the  measure  of  your  influence  in 
the  world.  Is  it  possible  that  you  have  no  thought 
of  God;  that  you  have  not  come  to  realize  the  existence 
of  God  and  your  dependence  on  him;  that  you  do 
not  yet  understand  the  goodness  of  God  and  his  power 
to  inspire  your  soul  ?  Then,  indeed,  you  are  to  be 
pitied;  for  you  are  one  of  the  vast  multitude  whose 
hands  have  worked  without  avail.  The  great  and 
controlling  influence  needed  in  order  that  your  work 
shall  count  has  been  lacking.  I  do  not  have  in 
mind  the  meaning  of  the  creeds,  nor  the  work  of  the 
churches.  It  is  something  higher  and  deeper — the 
contact  of  the  human  soul  with  the  power  that  created 
it;  the  communion  of  that  soul  with  the  spirit  that 
continues  its  existence.  Just  as  light  and  progress 
have  come  into  the  world  with  the  coming  of  the 
truer  conception  of  God,  so  light  will  enter  the  soul; 
and  the  life  of  that  soul  will  make  progress  with 
the  increasing  appreciation  of  the  goodness  and 
the  greatness  of  God.  Religious  life  is  largely 
the  outward  expression  of  thought,  and  thought 
is  most  ideal  when.it  is  thought  of  God.  Let  us 
free  ourselves,  so  far  as  we  may,  from  the  things 
which  fetter  the  spirit  in  its  effort  to  come  into 
contact  with  the  great  spirit  of  which  it  is  a  part. 
Let  us  break  down  the  barriers  which  stand  between 
us  and  the  God  in  whose  image  we  were  made. 
Let  us  avail  ourselves  of  every  opportunity  to  grow 
upward  rather  than  downward.  Let  us  earnestly 


154     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

seek  that  higher  life  in  which  spirit  meets  spirit, 
and  the  ideal  of  man's  creation  is  at  last  attained. 
What  is  it  to  be  free  ?  It  is  to  be  in  touch  with 
the  Divinity.  What  is  it  to  be  strong?  It  is  to 
be  a  companion  spirit  of  the  Great  Spirit.  What 
is  it  to  be  true?  It  is  to  be  in  harmony  with  the 
truth  of  the  universe,  which  is  itself  the  reflection 
of  the  character  of  God. 

And  now,  what  has  Bible  study  to  do  with  all 
this  ?  What  relation  has  been  found  to  exist  between 
this  inner  and  outer  religious  life,  this  personal 
consciousness  of  sin  and  righteousness,  of  God  and 
his  goodness,  of  love  for  God  and  for  man — all  this 
on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the  other,  the  study  of  the 
Bible? 

My  question  does  not  put  on  one  side  the  religious 
life  and  on  the  other  the  Bible.  For  the  Bible  is 
of  no  more  value  to  you  in  the  struggles  of  your 
religious  experience  than  the  trashiest  ten-cent  novel 
— unless  directly  or  indirectly  you  make  use  of  it. 
Do  you  remember  that  most  interesting  discovery 
made  in  the  days  of  King  Josiah  in  Jerusalem,  the 
discovery  of  a  long-lost  Bible?  Shaphan  read  it 
before  the  king.  "And  it  came  to  pass,  when  the 
king  had  heard  the  words  of  the  book  of  the  law, 
that  he  rent  his  clothes."  Then  there  followed 
that  reformation,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  in 
history,  the  reformation  under  Josiah.  My  point 


BIBLE  STUDY  AND  RELIGIOUS  LIFE     155 

is  that  an  unused  Bible,  an  unstudied  Bible,  is  not 
helpful.  It  is  also  true  that  a  mere  knowledge  of 
the  contents  of  the  Bible  is  insufficient.  I  know 
men  who  can  repeat  entire  chapters  and  even  books 
of  the  Bible,  not  to  speak  of  verses,  whose  lives  and 
thought,  so  far  as  one  can  judge,  remain  wholly 
uninfluenced  by  the  knowledge.  There  is  likewise 
a  certain  scholastic  knowledge  which,  so  far  as  the 
religious  life  is  concerned,  avails  little  or  nothing. 
You  will  not  misunderstand  me.  The  most  accu- 
rate and  extensive  learning  is  needed  in  connection 
with  the  archaeological,  exegetical,  and  theological 
examination  of  biblical  material.  But  this  may 
exist  and  yet  render  but  an  indifferent  service  to  the 
man  whose  heart  calls  for  consolation,  whose  soul 
needs  lifting  up  from  the  depths  of  misery  and 
wretchedness.  It  is  therefore  the  Bible  studied, 
not  the  unused  Bible,  that  is  the  subject  of  our  theme ; 
and  the  Bible  studied  with  special  reference  to  the 
religious  life,  not  to  archaeology,  nor  exegesis,  nor 
even  theology. 

The  fact  is  that  the  exercise  which  we  call  study 
is  in  itself  a  good  religious  discipline.  It  produces 
accuracy  of  thought,  and  this  is  only  another  phrase 
for  truth;  it  creates  a  desire  for  knowledge,  and  all 
knowledge  rightly  considered  leads  to  God.  This 
exercise  of  study,  when  it  is  taken  up  seriously  and 
honestly  in  connection  with  the  sacred  books  that 
form  our  Bible,  is  the  highest  function  of  the  human 


156     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

mind,  and  the  function  which  produces  the  largest 
and  most  valuable  fruitage.  For,  if  we  regard  the 
matter  closely,  we  perceive  that  Bible  study  is  the 
act  of  furnishing  nourishment  to  the  seed  of  divine 
life  which  exists  in  the  individual  soul;  or,  if  we  use 
the  other  figure,  it  is  the  force  which  keeps  alive  the 
spark  of  divine  life,  increasing  its  brilliancy  and 
constantly  adding  to  its  power. 

Let  us  consider  this  thought  from  three  points 
of  view. 

First,  the  spiritual  life  within  us  stands  as  much 
in  need  of  nourishment,  of  assistance  in  its  growth, 
as  do  the  physical  and  the  intellectual  life.  We  may 
not  say  that  the  religious  or  spiritual  life  will  take 
care  of  itself,  because  it  is  divine.  God  has  given 
us  bodies  and  minds,  but  they  are  so  constituted 
that  they  will  starve  and  die,  if  not  fed;  the  same 
law  holds  good  in  the  religious  life. 

Second,  everything  which  contributes  toward 
the  legitimate  development  of  the  inner  religious 
life  will  deepen  and  enrich  one's  personal  experience 
in  all  of  its  phases,  the  outward  as  well  as  the  inner. 

Third,  of  all  agencies  which  may  serve  as  sources 
of  help  in  the  training  and  strengthening  of  the 
religious  life,  the  Bible,  when  studied,  is  the  most 
helpful,  and,  in  a  word,  is  indispensable.  I  shall 
ask  your  attention  in  what  follows  to  this  third 
proposition,  omitting  further  reference  to  the  first 
and  second. 


BIBLE  STUDY  AND  RELIGIOUS  LIFE     157 

Looking  at  the  matter  externally,  and,  as  before, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  worship,  or  the  cultivation 
of  the  devotional  spirit,  no  literature,  not  even  those 
of  Christian  nations  and  of  modern  times,  contains 
such  helps  to  prayer  and  praise  and  holy  communion 
with  the  spirit  in  and  around  us  as  do  the  pages  of 
the  Bible.  We  realize  that  for  most  of  us  the  ritual 
of  ancient  Israel  has  been  supplanted  by  the  simpler 
ceremonial  of  New  Testament  times.  But  we  do 
well  to  remember  that  the  old  ritual,  as  it  stands  in 
Holy  Writ,  was  one  used  largely  by  Jesus  himself;  that 
this  ritual,  complex  and  mysterious  as  it  may  now 
seem  to  be,  was,  at  one  time,  the  honest  and  sincere 
expression  of  the  relationship  of  man  to  God  and 
of  God  to  man,  on  the  part  of  a  people  rightly  called 
holy,  because  they  had  been  the  agency  chosen  by 
God  himself  for  the  revelation  of  himself  to  all 
humanity.  This  ceremonial,  expressing  the  reli- 
gious life,  which  was  the  divinely  authorized  pre- 
cursor of  the  Christ,  must  contain  rich  food  for  those 
who,  like  all  the  people  of  those  times,  have  not  yet 
reached  in  their  religious  growth  the  higher  things 
of  Christianity.  Even  believers  require  different 
kinds  of  food;  some  may  be  ready  for  the  strong 
meat  of  the  gospel;  while  for  others  a  better  diet 
will  be  found  in  the  milk  of  an  earlier  stage  of  develop- 
ment. I  make  bold  to  say  that  even  today  children 
and  many  adults  will  be  better  nourished  if  they 
take  their  food  in  the  order  in  which  God  has  seen 


158      RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

fit  to  give  it  to  man;  namely,  first  "the  blade,  then 
the  ear,  then  the  full  corn  in  the  ear." 

Furthermore,  as  a  manual  of  prayer  and  praise 
the  old  Hebrew  Psalter  still  stands  unsurpassed. 
It  is  the  highest  and  purest  expression  known  to 
man  of  the  soul's  communion  with  God.  It  has 
for  nearly  twenty-five  centuries  served  as  the  mouth- 
piece of  untold  millions  of  God's  saints,  and  is 
destined,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  to  continue  thus  to 
serve  a  suffering  humanity  for  all  time.  Its  adapta- 
tion to  human  needs  has  been  well  summarized  in 
the  following  utterance: 

What  is  there  necessary  for  man  to  know  which  the  Psalms 
are  not  able  to  teach?  They  are  to  beginners  an  easy  and 
familiar  introduction — a  mighty  augmentation  of  all  virtue 
and  knowledge  in  such  as  are  entered  before — a  strong  con- 
firmation to  the  most  perfect  among  others.  Heroical  magna- 
nimity, exquisite  justice,  grave  moderation,  exact  wisdom, 
repentance  unfeigned,  unwearied  patience,  the  mysteries  of 
God,  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  the  terrors  of  wrath,  the  com- 
forts of  grace,  the  works  of  Providence  over  this  world,  and 
the  promised  joys  of  that  world  which  is  to  come,  all  good 
necessarily  to  be  either  known,  or  done,  or  had,  this  one 
celestial  fountain  yieldeth.  Let  there  be  any  grief  or  disease 
incident  unto  the  soul  of  man,  any  wound  or  sickness  named, 
for  which  there  is  not  in  this  treasure-house  a  present  com- 
fortable remedy  at  all  times  ready  to  be  found.1 

The  same  thought  has  been  finely  expressed  by 
another  writer: — 

He  only  who  knows  the  number  of  the  waves  of  the  ocean, 

and  the  abundance  of  tears  in  the  human  eye;  He  who  sees 

1  HOOKER,  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  Book  V,  chap,  xxxvii,  sec.  2. 


BIBLE  STUDY  AND  RELIGIOUS  LIFE     159 

the  sighs  of  the  heart  before  they  are  uttered,  and  who  hears 
them  still  when  they  are  hurled  into  silence — He  alone  can 
tell  how  many  holy  emotions,  how  many  heavenly  vibrations, 
have  been  produced  and  will  ever  be  produced  in  the  souls 
of  men  by  the  reverberation  of  these  marvelous  strains,  of 
these  predestinated  hymns,  read,  meditated,  sung  in  every  hour 
of  day  and  night,  in  every  winding  of  the  vale  of  tears.  The 
Psalter  of  David  is  like  a  mystic  harp,  hung  on  the  walls  of 
the  true  Zion.  Under  the  breath  of  the  Spirit  of  God  it  sends 
forth  its  infinite  varieties  of  devotion,  which,  rolling  on  from 
echo  to  echo,  from  soul  to  soul,  awakens  in  each  a  separate 
note,  mingling  in  that  one  prolonged  voice  of  thankfulness 
and  penitence,  praise  and  prayers. 

These  quotations  point  to  another  fact  of  a 
practical  character.  The  study  of  the  Bible,  when 
properly  presented,  is  inspirational;  for  the  intel- 
ligent acceptance  and  appropriation  of  its  mater- 
ials, incorporated  into  creeds,  has  moved  and 
controlled  the  greatest  spirits  of  nineteen  centuries, 
and  through  them  the  civilized  world.  No  great 
man  has  wrought  among  his  fellows,  no  nation  has 
made  history,  except  under  the  influence  and  inspira- 
tion of  these  books  we  call  the  Bible.  Space  permits 
here  no  illustration;  still  we  may  recall  how  the 
Roman  empire  passed  into  Christian  hands,  and 
the  great  movements  since — the  Reformation,  the 
War  of  Independence,  and  even  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. This  Bible  of  ours  has  been  the  incentive; 
the  truth  gathered  from  its  pages,  even  when  mingled 
with  the  false  error  of  human  interpretation,  has 
been  the  basis  of  the  world's  most  helpful,  most 


160     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

efficient,  and  most  startling  forward  steps  through 
all  these  ages.  And  it  has  happened  thus  because 
this  truth  has  entered  into  religious  life  and  experi- 
ence. If  it  has  affected  the  life  of  men  in  days  gone 
by,  if  it  is  affecting  their  lives  today,  you  may  well 
believe  that  you,  as  well  as  they,  may  receive  inspira- 
tion and  direction;  that  the  study  of  the  Bible  will 
lift  you  to  a  higher  plane  of  usefulness  to  your  fellow- 
men. 

Still  again,  in  this  matter  of  life  as  men  see  it — I 
mean  standard  of  life,  conduct — where  else,  pray, 
than  in  the  Bible  is  there  to  be  found  more  vivid 
presentation  of  life  as  it  should  be  lived,  or  of  life 
as  it  should  not  be  lived  ?  Where  else  is  there  given 
more  pathetic  illustration  of  the  consequences  of 
sin  than  in  the  story  of  David;  or  more  definite 
presentation  of  the  rewards  of  righteousness  ? 

One  may  study  history  outside  of  the  Bible  and 
fail  to  find  anywhere  a  commingling  in  any  true 
proportions  of  the  various  elements  which  make  up 
the  religious  life.  Sin  has  made  such  headway 
in  the  world  that  apparently  no  instance  can  be 
found  of  a  well-rounded  religious  life  perfect  in 
every  particular.  We  look  in  vain  for  a  nation  that 
has  produced  or  expressed  this  ideal  religious  life. 
We  look  in  vain  for  an  association  or  organization 
of  any  kind  that  has  furnished  the  world  an  experi- 
ence that  might  be  accepted  as  the  true  type.  Indi- 
vidual men  have  approached  this  ideal  more  nearly 


BIBLE  STUDY  AND  RELIGIOUS  LIFE     161 

than  nations  or  organizations.  But  the  men  who 
have  reached  the  highest  place  in  this  effort  of  trans- 
cendent interest  to  all  humanity  have,  after  all, 
exhibited  characteristics  of  weakness  and  evidences 
of  innate  sinfulness  which  have  made  it  clear  that 
humanity  in  itself  may  not  attain  this  supreme 
thing. 

Does  it  follow,  then,  that  the  world  has  seen  no 
perfect  example  of  this  life?  In  order  that  the 
world  might  have  such  perfect  illustration  of  it, 
an  illustration  which  all  men  might  see  and  study, 
and  by  which  humanity  might  be  lifted  to  a  still 
higher  plane  than  that  which  it  had  reached  through 
the  divine  help  already  furnished  in  other  ways, 
Jesus  Christ  was  born,  and  therefore  he  lived  and 
taught  and  died.  His  attitude  of  reverence  and 
homage  toward  God,  in  its  simplicity  and  sublimity, 
in  its  prayerful  dependence,  and  in  its  irrepressible 
aspiration,  was  the  perfect  presentation  of  the  true 
worship,  in  itself,  and  in  its  relation  to  the  other 
factors  which  constitute  the  religious  experience. 
His  teaching  concerning  God  as  Father  of  the  world, 
of  humanity  as  a  single,  closely  related  family,  every 
member  of  which  had  responsibility  for  every  other 
member,  his  teaching  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven, 
and  the  ideal  social  life  in  which  justice  and  peace 
shall  reign,  constitute  a  creed  from  which  nothing 
may  be  subtracted;  while  the  making  of  additions 
to  it,  as  history  has  shown,  leads  surely  to  confusion 


1 62      RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

and  controversy.  His  life,  in  the  perfection  of  its 
purity,  in  the  pathos  of  its  self-sacrifice,  in  the  lofti- 
ness of  its  unselfish  achievement,  has  furnished  the 
world  principles  which  underlie  and  control  all 
right  li ving.  In  proportion,  therefore,  as  the  worship 
of  nations,  or  of  organizations,  or  of  individuals, 
is  as  sincere  and  honest  as  that  of  Jesus  Christ;  in 
proportion  as  their  belief  is  as  broad  and  deep  and 
true  as  was  his  belief;  in  proportion  as  their  life  is 
as  pure  and  self-sacrificing  and  lofty  as  was  his  life 
— in  just  such  proportion  will  nation,  or  organization, 
or  individual  give  illustration  of  the  true  religious 
experience. 

Suppose  we  grant,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that 
a  man  of  earnest  religious  temperament  might  be 
able  to  find  elsewhere  than  in  the  Bible  the  material 
which  would  serve  him  fairly  well  for  purposes  of 
devotion,  for  basis  of  belief,  and  for  standards  of 
ethical  life.  What  shall  be  said  in  reference  to  the 
material  which  will  serve  his  purpose  in  the  realm 
of  his  inner  religious  life — the  experience  of  the 
consciousness  of  sin  and  the  longing  for  righteous- 
ness; the  experience  of  a  sense  of  fellowship  with 
God,  and  appreciation  of  receiving  God's  help  in 
time  of  trouble;  the  experience  of  love  for  God  and 
love  for  man  ?  Can  the  best  material  for  the  nour- 
ishment of  spiritual  life  be  found  elsewhere  than  in 
the  Sacred  Scriptures  ? 

Let  me  stop  here  to  answer  a  point  sometimes 


BIBLE  STUDY  AND  RELIGIOUS  LIFE     163 

made  against  the  necessity  of  Bible  study.  It  is 
said,  with  apparent  plausibility,  that,  in  one  form 
or  another,  our  modern  literature  contains  all  of 
the  biblical  element  really  needed  for  the  nourish- 
ment of  the  divine  life  in  man;  that  in  the  lines  of 
poetry  and  the  discussions  of  philosophy,  in  the 
treatises  on  ethics  and  the  pages  of  history,  one  may 
find  a  really  excellent  substitute  for  the  prophecies 
of  Isaiah  and  his  disciples,  the  utterances  of  the 
sages,  the  ethical  narratives  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments,  the  letters  and  discourses  of  the  apostles 
and  their  co-workers.  Two  replies  may  be  made: 
first,  the  very  fact  alleged  shows  all  the  more  clearly 
the  power  of  the  Scriptures,  for  if  they  possessed 
not  a  special  power  and  value  given  from  on  high, 
their  influence  could  not  have  permeated  as  it  has 
all  modern  literature;  but,  beyond  this,  it  is  to  be 
noted,  the  source  of  the  wonderful  influence  thus 
exerted  is  conceded  by  all  to  have  been  and  to  be  the 
Bible.  In  these  days,  if  never  before,  we  are  expected 
to  go  to  the  original  sources  for  our  information. 
The  one  source,  the  only  source,  as  well  as  the  original 
source,  for  help  of  the  kind  here  considered  is  the 
Bible.  My  friends,  do  not  waste  your  time  and 
strength  in  the  effort  to  find  this  most  precious 
material  in  a  diluted  form,  when  you  can  so  easily 
obtain  it  pure;  and  remember  that  the  dilution  of  a 
pure  article  is  often  only  another  term  for  adultera- 
tion. It  is  not  an  uninteresting  piece  of  work  to 


1 64     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

follow  this  or  that  author  in  his  effort  to  reproduce 
the  truth  of  the  biblical  writings  according  to  his 
own  fancy;  but  it  is  a  far  more  profitable  thing  to 
study  the  biblical  writings  themselves — writings  so 
strong  and  so  helpful,  and  so  necessary  to  man's 
true  life  that  even  in  their  adulterated  form  they 
have  been  found  most  valuable.  I  have  a  feeling 
of  profound  pity  for  that  minister  of  the  gospel  who 
finds  it  necessary  to  place  side  by  side  with  his  text 
or  as  a  substitute  for  it,  a  quotation,  however  excel- 
lent, from  a  secular  writer. 

Lack  of  time  forbids  me  to  consider  separately 
the  three  great  ideas  which  constitute  the  controlling 
thought  of  the  inner  spiritual  life.  Indeed,  in  what 
has  already  been  said  I  have  largely  anticipated 
what  I  might  say  at  this  point.  No  one  can  deny 
that  in  our  Old  and  New  Testament  Scriptures  we 
find  the  fullest  and  clearest  presentation  of  the  char- 
acter of  God.  We  may  interpret  this  revelation  in 
one  way  or  in  another;  but  whatever  way  we  adopt, 
the  fact  remains  that  the  material  to  be  interpreted 
is  biblical  material.  If  God  is  himself  the  ultimate 
source  of  all  religious  experience,  it  may  surely  be 
predicated  that  the  richest  and  fullest  experience  will 
come,  can  come,  to  those  only  who  best  know  him 
as  he  has  made  himself  known;  to  those  only  who 
by  such  knowledge  are  in  closest  touch  with  him. 
In  the  olden  days  the  prophet  Hosea  repeated 
pathetically  the  bitter  complaint:  "My  people  are 


BIBLE  STUDY  AND  RELIGIOUS  LIFE     165 

destroyed  for  lack  of  knowledge"  (4:6);  "they  do 
not  know  Jehovah"  (5:4).  In  these  modern  days 
men  are  even  more  foolish  and  go  awhoring  after 
every  absurd  notion  which  the  human  mind  can 
invent.  In  very  truth,  they  do  not  know  the  God 
of  the  Scriptures;  and  why  not?  Because  they 
have  not  studied  his  character  as  it  is  revealed  in 
the  Word,  and  in  the  flesh;  or  because  they  have 
studied  it,  alas,  through  glasses  so  dimmed  with 
human  error  that  the  true  light  has  been  shut  out. 

This  is  true,  likewise,  of  the  two  great  corollaries 
of  the  teaching  concerning  God — that  of  sin,  and  that 
of  man's  relation  to  man.  No  man,  good  or  bad, 
has  ever  lived  whose  picture  has  not  been  painted 
in  Holy  Writ.  You  cannot  read  many  chapters 
before  clearly  to  your  eyes  your  own  portrait  appears. 
There  is  no  sin  so  damnable,  no  virtue  so  exalted, 
that  it  has  not  found  full  illustration  in  these  sacred 
narratives.  You  will  find  nowhere  else  so  clearly 
presented  your  own  religious  needs,  your  short- 
comings. You  will  find  no  writings  which,  by  their 
insistence  upon  ethical  ideals,  appeal  so  strongly 
to  your  conscience.  You  will  find  nowhere  else 
so  definite  a  placing  of  responsibility  for  sin  upon 
the  individual.  If  you  read  sympathetically  the 
words  of  an  Old  Testament  prophet,  or  of  a  New 
Testament  apostle,  you  will,  in  spite  of  yourself, 
wonder  at  the  deep  and  overwhelming  sense  of  sin 
which  he  exhibits.  In  other  words,  your  own  con- 


1 66      RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

viction  of  sin  will  be  so  deepened  as  to  bring  you  by 
reaction  into  that  state  in  which  you  may  assume 
the  right  relation  to  your  Maker.  No  other  litera- 
ture will  produce  this  effect,  unless  it  be  a  literature 
so  saturated  with  biblical  truth  as  in  itself  to  repro- 
duce the  biblical  thought. 

Think,  too,  of  the  educative  element  in  the  records 
of  the  lives  of  great  leaders,  now  following  the  right 
path,  now  turned  aside;  at  one  time  crowned  with 
all  the  favor  of  a  loving  God,  at  another  punished 
with  all  the  severity  which  characterizes  an  impartial 
judge.  I  have  already  spoken  of  the  unique  life 
pictured  to  us — the  life  of  Jesus.  This  is  the  climax 
of  the  whole;  all  else  might  perhaps  be  dispensed 
with,  so  long  as  this  remained ;  and  yet  all  else  forms 
the  background  on  which  this  picture  rests. 

Let  me  then  repeat:  The  study  of  the  Bible  is 
to  be  thought  of  as  the  eating  of  food — food  not  for 
the  body  or  the  mind,  but  for  the  soul.  One  may 
at  times  find  nourishment  for  his  soul  elsewhere 
in  diluted  form.  If  it  is  desired  pure  and  at  first 
hand,  the  Bible  is  the  one  source  of  supply.  This 
work  of  Bible  study  is  indispensable,  if  one's  religious 
life  is  to  be  strong  and  sturdy  and  alert,  and  if  it  is 
to  be  at  all  equal  to  the  demands  made  upon  it  in 
this  world  of  struggle  and  temptation. 

I  desire  to  state  in  conclusion  certain  propositions 
which  seem  to  me  to  grow  out  of  this  discussion 
and  which  belong  to  it. 


BIBLE  STUDY  AND.  RELIGIOUS  LIFE     167 

In  your  study  of  the  Bible  do  not  expect  to  find 
all  portions  of  it  equally  helpful  to  you  in  your 
Christian  life.  The  Bible  is  for  universal  use. 
If  every  part  of  it  were  of  equal  value  to  you,  how 
narrow  and  provincial  and  even  valueless  it  would 
be  for  many  others  of  your  fellow-men!  Its  truth 
is  so  presented  that  children  may  go  to  it  with  satis- 
faction; the  deepest  thinker  also  may  find  that  of 
which  he  stands  in  need.  This  is  the  Bible's  greatest 
worth.  Every  stage  of  individual  and  national 
religious  development  is  provided  for.  The  art  in 
all  this,  that  which  makes  it  possible,  is  something 
far  beyond  human  understanding.  We  cannot 
fail  to  see  that  it  is  so,  however  futile  our  attempt 
may  be  to  explain  how  it  is  so.  We  know  quite  well 
why  it  is  so;  for  otherwise  it  would  not  be  what  it  is 
—universal,  the  only  collection  of  writings  which 
may  seriously  claim  to  be  universal. 

In  your  study  of  this  collection  do  not  lose  sight 
of  the  large  amount  of  history  in  its  content;  and 
keep  in  mind  that  every  utterance  of  prophet,  law- 
giver, and  sage,  of  disciple,  apostle,  and  teacher, 
has  an  historical  basis;  that  is,  it  grew  out  of  some 
historical  situation  intended  in  the  divine  providence 
to  serve  as  the  occasion  of  the  utterance  and  as  its 
basis.  An  important  historical  event  happens 
among  us  in  these  days — the  assassination  of  a  presi- 
dent, the  rumor  of  war,  the  centennial  of  the  birth 
of  a  city — and  the  teachers  and  preachers  seize  this 


1 68      RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

as  the  basis  for  lessons  in  religious  instruction.  A 
certain  condition  of  things  exists  in  this  or  that 
country,  a  great  awakening  is  needed,  and  from 
every  pulpit  there  comes  the  word  of  exhortation 
and  demand.  Just  so  in  ancient  times.  And  if 
by  the  study  of  sacred  history  we  are  able  to  dis- 
cover the  event  or  circumstance,  the  situation  or 
occasion,  of  a  prophecy  or  a  letter,  whether  it  be 
the  approach  of  an  invading  army  or  the  corrupt 
condition  of  one  of  the  churches  of  New  Testament 
tunes,  a  new  light  is  shed  upon  the  words;  they  take 
on  a  new  significance;  they  live,  as  they  did  not  live 
before.  Too  much  cannot  be  said  in  favor  of  the 
effort  thus  to  connect  the  sacred  words  with  the 
sacred  history  which  furnished  their  occasion.  And 
then,  we  may  not  forget  that,  after  all,  the  events 
were  the  principal  thing.  For  example,  the  suffering 
and  death  and  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  are  his- 
tory; that  is,  they  are  facts.  Now,  suppose  no  gospel 
story  of  them  had  ever  been  written,  would  they 
have  altogether  lost  their  historical  value?  And, 
as  such,  would  not  the  divine  purpose  sought  for 
in  them  have  been  accomplished?  Is  it  not  true, 
then,  that  the  historical  fact  back  of  the  record  is 
the  thing  on  which  we  must  build  our  faith,  the  solid 
rock  on  which  we  may  take  our  stand  ? 

Some  of  us  in  our  Bible  study  are  troubled  with 
the  so-called  difficulties.  I  am  afraid  that  the  number 
of  such  persons  is  too  small.  To  be  thus  troubled 


BIBLE  STUDY  AND  RELIGIOUS  LIFE     169 

indicates  two  things:  that  one  has  actually  been 
engaged  in  study;  and — take  my  word  for  it — no 
student  ever  worked  in  any  subject  who  did  not 
find  difficulties.  It  shows  also  that  the  man  is 
honest.  There  is  much  that  I  should  like  to  suggest 
on  this  phase  of  our  subject;  for  I  have  had  very 
sad  and  bitter  experiences  of  my  own  along  this  line. 
I  wish,  however,  to  make  a  single  suggestion:  Do 
not,  for  the  sake  of  all  that  you  hold  sacred,  allow 
the  existence  of  intellectual  difficulties  to  interfere 
with  the  progress  of  your  practical  religious  life. 
Many  men  think  that  unless  all  their  intellectual 
problems  are  settled  it  is  impossible  to  live  a  truly 
religious  life.  A  more  mistaken  notion  never 
entered  a  man's  head.  If  you  are  a  thinking  man, 
you  will  always  have  difficulties;  new  ones  will 
probably  come  forward  even  more  rapidly  than  old 
ones  are  settled.  Be  not  too  greatly  disturbed  by 
these  difficulties.  If  you  are  not  yet  a  Christian, 
do  not  put  off  becoming  one  until  they  disappear 
Such  a  time  will  never  come.  Go  forward  in  Chris- 
tian work  and  service,  follow  the  paths  pointed  out 
to  you  so  clearly  in  Sacred  Scripture,  and  let  the 
difficulties  be  settled  as  your  Christian  faith  grows 
stronger  and  your  Christian  character  becomes  more 
firmly  established. 

I  cannot  bring  myself  to  forego  just  here  a  quota- 
tion from  one  of  the  greatest  of  modern  Bible  students, 
the  late  Professor  Davidson,  of  Edinburgh.  It  is 


170     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

found  in  his  Commentary  on  Job,  in  the  chapter 
containing  Jehovah's  answer  out  of  the  storm: 

It  is  God  who  now  speaks  to  Job;  and  in  his  teaching  of 
men  he  never  moves  in  the  region  of  the  mere  understanding, 
but  always  in  that  of  the  religious  life.  He  may  remove  per- 
plexities regarding  his  providence  and  ways  from  men's 
minds:  He  does  not  do  so,  however,  by  the  immediate  com- 
munication of  intellectual  light;  but  rather  by  flushing  all  the 
channels  of  thought  and  life  with  a  deeper  sense  of  himself. 
Under  the  flow  of  this  fuller  sense  of  God,  perplexities  dis- 
appear, just  as  rocks  that  raise  an  angry  surf  when  the  tide  is 
low  are  covered  and  unknown  when  it  is  full. 

It  goes  almost  without  saying  that  if  your  religious 
life  is  based  upon  a  study  of  the  Scriptures,  it  will 
be  largely  shaped  by  the  way  in  which  you  handle 
these  Scriptures.  There  is  no  error  of  the  human 
mind  or  heart  which  has  not  supported  itself  by  the 
use  of  Scripture;  for  instance,  here  polygamy,  there 
slavery;  here  spiritualism,  there — I  might  mention 
twenty  abnormal,  absurd  religious  developments 
which  flourish  in  the  very  heart  of  our  strongest  and 
most  intelligent  centers.  The  origin  of  all  these 
is  false  interpretation,  failure  to  see  aright  the  thought 
intended  to  be  conveyed  by  the  sacred  writer,  and 
an  ignorance  of  God  so  great  as  to  allow  it  to  be 
thought  that  such  absurdities  are  pleasing  to  him 
and  represent  aright  his  truth  to  men.  The  responsi- 
bility, therefore,  of  interpretation  is  very  great — so 
great  that  in  certain  divisions  of  the  Christian  church 
it  is  a  privilege  denied  the  ordinary  Christian  and 


BIBLE  STUDY  AND  RELIGIOUS  LIFE     171 

granted  only  to  those  holding  high  ecclesiastical 
position.  There  is  in  this  a  great  lesson  for  us  all; 
and  yet,  it  is  better  to  have  error  stalk  high  through 
the  land  than  to  deprive  a  single  man  of  the  privilege 
of  interpreting  for  himself  and  of  accepting  for  him- 
self the  significance  of  the  Sacred  Writings.  But 
where  privilege  is  granted,  there  responsibility  rests; 
and  you  may  never  shift  upon  another  the  responsi- 
bility which  is  solely  yours. 

It  follows  that  one  can  well  afford  to  put  forth 
the  greatest  possible  effort  to  secure  in  correct  form 
this  food  for  the  nourishment  of  his  spiritual  life. 
The  strange  thing  is  that  men  who  profess  to  value 
this  food  so  highly  satisfy  themselves  with  so  small 
an  amount  of  it.  The  most  serious  act  of  hypocrisy 
which  a  Christian  can  commit  is  to  boast  loudly  on 
the  street  corner,  or  on  the  housetop,  of  the  value 
and  authority  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  assigning 
each  and  every  word  literally  to  the  finger  of  God, 
and  then  to  accord  to  these  same  Scriptures  less 
thought  and  attention  by  far  than  he  gives  to  the 
daily  newspaper.  In  how  many  Christian  families 
of  the  city  of  Chicago  do  you  suppose  the  reading 
of  the  morning  paper  at  the  breakfast  table  has 
supplanted  the  morning  reading  of  the  Bible  so  com- 
mon in  these  same  families  less  than  twenty  years 
ago?  Every  Christian  man  should  face  this  ques- 
tion: "Is  the  Bible  what  I  have  supposed  it  to  be? 
If  so,  it  is  for  me  to  treat  it  differently,  to  make  it 


172      RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

the  subject  of  systematic  study,  and,  through  acquaint- 
ance with  it,  to  come  closer  to  God;  to  know  him 
better,  and,  having  this  knowledge,  to  realize,  as  I 
have  not  hitherto  realized,  my  responsibility  to  my 
fellow-men."  No  man  need  ever  fear  that  he  will 
attain  too  large  a  knowledge  of  these  sacred  books. 
It  is  promised  many  times  in  these  same  Scrip- 
tures that  to  him  who  approaches  God  in  this  attitude 
of  mind  the  Holy  Spirit,  in  turn,  will  come  with 
blessings  of  mercy  and  comfort  and  peace.  This 
promise,  the  saints  of  all  ages  assert,  has  always 
been  fulfilled.  Let  it  be  our  prayer  that  it  may  find 
large  fulfilment  in  the  case  of  every  man  or  woman 
who,  in  earnestness  and  sincerity,  determines  to 
study  this  sacred  volume  in  the  future  more  carefully 
more  assiduously,  and  more  systematically  than 
hitherto. 


XII 
AMERICA    AS    A    MISSIONARY    FIELD 

THE  world  has  had  sixty  centuries  of  history. 
How  many  centuries  of  life  man  lived  on  earth 
before  the  dawn  of  history  we  can  only  guess,  as 
new  discovery  pushes  back  still  farther  the  date 
of  history's  beginnings.  These  sixty  centuries  fall 
quite  naturally,  and  with  a  peculiar  symmetry, 
into  three  divisions  of  about  twenty  centuries  each. 
During  the  first  twenty  the  great  civilizing  forces 
came  from  the  fertile  region  of  the  lower  Euphrates 
and  the  Tigris,  Babylonia — a  country  whose  petty 
kingdoms  were  first  organized  into  an  empire  by 
Sargon  of  Accad  3800  B.  C.;  a  civilization  which, 
through  two  thousand  years  or  more,  pervaded  and 
uplifted  the  countries  west  of  the  Mediterranean. 
Egypt  all  this  while  was  developing  a  second  civiliza- 
tion, but  the  aggressive  spirit  seized  her  much  later. 

The  end  of  the  twentieth  century  B.  C.  was 
marked  by  the  movement  westward  through  Meso- 
potamia to  the  Palestine  seaboard  of  a  group  of 
nomadic  tribes  under  Abraham,  one  of  which,  in 
the  providence  of  God,  was  to  bring  to  humanity 
the  true  conception  and  apprehension  of  a  personal 
God.  These  twenty  centuries  of  Babylonian  civil- 
ization on  one  side,  and  Egyptian  civilization  on 
173 


174     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

the  other,  had  furnished  the  preparation  of  Syria, 
and  of  those  who  were  to  be  Syria's  inhabitants, 
for  the  great  work  which  was  to  follow.  It  is  true 
that  after  this  both  Babylon  and  Egypt  flourished, 
but  their  real  work  had  reached  its  culmination, 
and  their  continuance  only  assisted  the  later  steps 
in  Syria's  development.  Babylonia  was  the  great 
power  in  the  first  twenty  centuries,  Syria  in  the 
second.  The  close  of  the  first  saw  the  coming  of 
the  Hebrew  tribe  under  Abraham's  leadership;  the 
close  of  the  second  was  marked  by  the  coming  of 
the  Son  of  man,  the  ideal  Hebrew,  to  whom  Syria, 
with  sore  travail,  at  last  gave  birth.  The  work  of 
centuries  of  Greek  and  Roman  history  was  but  a 
contribution  to  this,  the  crowning  event  of  forty 
centuries. 

The  third  period  of  twenty  centuries  is  but  now 
drawing  to  its  close.  The  Hebrew,  though  not  born 
as  a  nation  till  nearly  half  the  period  had  passed, 
was  the  central  influence  of  the  second  period.  In 
this  third  period  the  central  figure  has  been  Eng- 
land, although  in  her  case,  too,  a  good  portion  of 
the  period  had  elapsed  before  she  took  her  place 
among  the  nations.  Babylonia,  Syria,  England! 

Another  great  period  is  just  being  ushered  in, 
which  promises  to  eclipse  its  predecessor  even  as 
that  predecessor  eclipsed  those  that  preceded  it. 
The  lines  separating  these  great  periods  are  not 
sharply  drawn.  Perhaps  we  are  already  fairly 


AMERICA  AS  A  MISSIONARY  FIELD      175 

under  way  in  the  new  period.  A  thousand  years 
from  now  men  will  be  better  able  to  determine. 
In  any  case,  we  know,  and  the  world  knows,  that 
what  Babylonia  was  in  the  first  period,  what  Syria 
was  in  the  second,  what  England  was  in  the  third, 
all  this  and  more  America  will  be  in  the  fourth. 

This  westward  movement  has  been  synchronous 
with  the  history  of  the  progress  of  civilization.  And 
the  history  of  civilization  has  been  synchronous  with 
the  development  of  a  pure  and  true  conception  of 
God,  and  of  his  relation  to  man. 

Did  God  enter  into  this  wonderful  development 
for  the  first  time  when  Abraham  was  called  ?  And 
did  he  take  a  journey  into  a  far-off  country  when 
Jesus  Christ  ascended  into  heaven?  Was  not  God 
acting  throughout  the  period  of  Babylonian  influence 
just  as  truly  as  through  the  period  which  began  with 
Abraham  and  closed  with  Jesus?  May  we  not 
believe  that  he  has  been  as  closely  identified  with  the 
period  which  is  now  closing  as  with  that  which  pre- 
sented the  Sacred  Scriptures  to  humanity?  The 
Babylonian,  Syrian,  and  English  periods  are  passed. 
The  American  is  coming.  Will  there  be  new  revela- 
tions of  God  in  this  period  ?  Surely  we  may  expect 
them.  Does  not  the  world  know  God  in  a  new  way 
because  of  the  events  in  the  world's  history  during 
the  past  two  thousand  years  ?  Does  not  the  world 
know  God  in  a  new  way  because  of  the  dis- 
coveries made  by  science  in  these  latest  years — dis- 


176     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

coveries  which  teach  us  nothing,  if  they  do  not  teach 
of  God  and  of  his  laws?  It  must  be  remembered 
that  the  revelations  which  God  has  seen  fit  to  make 
of  himself  in  the  past  have  been  accepted  as  such 
by  very  few  of  those  to  whom  they  were  first  given. 
The  Christ  himself  was  rejected  by  the  mass  of  those 
who  saw  and  heard  him.  It  has  taken  centuries  for 
most  of  these  revelations  to  gain  recognition  as  divine. 

For  myself,  I  am  compelled  to  believe  that  during 
these  centuries  words  have  been  uttered  and  ideas 
developed  which  later  generations  will  recognize 
as  a  revelation  from  God  himself.  What,  now, 
is  the  nature  of  this  revelation  which  has  not  yet 
been  clearly  discerned?  and  toward  what  does  it 
point?  In  Christ  the  Son  we  are  accustomed  to 
say,  and  we  believe,  that  God  the  Father  revealed 
himself.  But  it  is  also  true  that  in  him  for  the  first 
time  ideal  man  and  ideal  humanity  were  revealed; 
and  the  discovery  that  such  a  revelation  was  given 
is  only  gradually  coming  to  us  in  these  last  centuries 
of  Christian  progress. 

The  social  rights,  which  aforetime  had  been 
limited  to  a  few  lords  and  vassals  joined  in  solemn 
compact,  were  acquired  by  the  great  non-feudal 
classes  only  at  the  breaking  up  of  feudalism.  It 
was  through  the  great  political  revolutions  of  Eng- 
lish history  that  humanity  learned  that  political 
rights  were  not  the  grants  of  a  sovereign  in  a  charter, 
as  under  the  Norman  kings,  but  the  God-given 


AMERICA  AS  A  MISSIONARY  FIELD     177 

possession  of  the  people  themselves  to  be  admin- 
istered according  to  the  will  of  the  people.  It  was 
in  the  Reformation  that  humanity  began  to  appre- 
ciate the  true  conception  of  religion  as  something 
not  to  be  mediated  to  men  by  other  men  of  special 
sanctity  or  authority,  or  by  an  institution  of  peculiar 
divine  appointment,  but  rather  as  the  appropriate 
prerogative  of  every  individual. 

I  need  not  give  further  illustration.  My  point 
is  this :  The  contribution  of  these  nineteen  centuries 
— in  other  words,  the  contribution  of  Christianity — 
has  not  been  simply  a  better,  truer  knowledge  of 
God.  Men  knew  very  much  about  God  before 
Christ  came.  It  has  been  a  better,  truer  knowledge 
of  man  himself,  of  whom  men  knew  next  to  nothing 
at  the  dawn  of  the  present  era.  The  powers  and 
rights  which  had  supposedly  belonged  to  classes 
are  now  known  to  belong  to  individuals  as  such. 
Every  idea  of  individual  right,  as  distinguished  from 
the  privileges  of  caste  or  class  or  guild,  has  been 
worked  out  into  definite  expression  since  the  birth 
of  Christ. 

This  idea  of  individualism,  of  the  paramount 
dignity  of  the  individual,  has  expressed  itself,  more 
clearly  and  more  specifically,  in  every  advance  of 
civilization.  In  the  increasing  effort  to  control  the 
powers  of  nature  every  man  today  is,  potentially,  a 
thinker,  a  scientist;  for  to  no  man  is  there  denied 
the  privilege  of  securing  such  control;  in  the  effort  to 


178      RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

make  provision  for  the  conflicting  claims  of  persons 
with  similar  interests  every  man  is,  potentially,  a 
producer,  an  economist;  in  the  effort  on  the  part 
of  a  constantly  increasing  number  of  persons  to 
secure  the  full  enjoyment  of  the  highest  life  every 
man  is,  potentially,  a  co-operator,  a  citizen;  in  the 
effort  to  secure  the  highest  privilege,  that  of  freedom 
of  opinion  on  religious  subjects,  every  man  is,  poten- 
tially, a  worshiper,  a  priest.  Within  the  bounds 
of  the  various  fields,  every  man  has  come  to  be 
recognized  as  by  nature  endowed  with  the  power 
of  a  freeman.  This  is  the  teaching  of  nineteen 
centuries  of  Christian  civilization;  in  other  words, 
of  Christianity. 

But,  now,  these  ideas  have  been  demonstrated 
only  "piecemeal,  and  incoherently,  in  separated 
times  and  places."  However  clearly  they  may 
have  been  taught  in  the  new  Testament,  they  have 
not  yet  received  their  perfect  demonstration  in  human 
history.  The  question  of  individualism  as  a  whole 
is  still  on  trial;  the  real  test  of  Christianity's  success 
is  still  in  the  future.  She  cannot  be  said  to  have 
achieved  final  success  until  her  founder  Jesus  Christ 
has  been  everywhere  recognized.  The  arena  in 
which  the  great  trial  shall  be  conducted  is  America. 
The  old  countries,  with  their  traditions  and  institu- 
tions which  obstruct  their  performance  of  full  human 
functions  by  the  masses,  cannot  work  out  the  prob- 
lems which  confront  us. 


AMERICA  AS  A  MISSIONARY  FIELD      179 

The  history  of  the  church  during  these  centuries 
is  sufficient  evidence  of  this  proposition.  Here 
in  this  great  country,  provided  by  God  himself 
with  all  the  facilities  needed,  preserved  in  large 
measure  by  God  himself  from  the  burdens  and 
trammels  of  dead  institutions  and  deadly  traditions, 
the  consummation  of  Christian  life  and  thought 
will  be  realized.  This  is  the  message  written  on 
every  page  of  our  nineteen  centuries  of  history.  It 
is  a  wonderful  and  significant  message. 

Is  its  meaning  appreciated?  God  is  in  the 
world  as  of  old.  He  may  move  slowly  in  further 
revelations  of  himself;  yet  when  the  days  are  placed 
together,  each  will  be  found  to  have  furnished  some 
such  revelation.  And  the  days  that  are  coming 
will  surpass  any  that  have  gone;  except  that  one 
day  which  saw  God  take  the  form  of  man,  the  day 
which  saw  him  live  as  man,  and  die  as  man,  and 
rise  again  as  God.  And  of  all  that  is  coming, 
America,  broadly  speaking,  will  be  the  scene  of 
action. 

We  remember  that  in  Babylonia  the  masses  were 
only  beasts  in  their  filth;  and  we  realize  how  much 
more  rapid  the  advance  of  true  thought  and  life  would 
have  been  had  the  highest  ideals  permeated  that 
empire.  We  remember  that  Syria,  and  even  Jeru- 
salem, were  rotten  with  the  putrefactions  of  debauch- 
ery and  sin;  and  we  can  see  that  the  battle  waged 
for  centuries  between  the  prophets  and  the  people 


180     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

would  have  brought  much  sooner  the  long-expected 
Messiah,  but  for  the  fact  that  the  time  was  not  yet 
come,  the  world  was  not  yet  ready. 

Today  we  see  the  vileness  of  life  even  in  Christian 
England,  and  among  her  children  in  every  section 
of  the  world;  and  we  wonder  how,  with  such  vileness 
at  home,  progress  in  heathen  lands  can  be  expected. 
We  need  only  to  look  at  our  own  country  to  see  how 
burdened  it  is  with  vice  and  crime,  with  skepticism 
and  indifference.  If,  now,  our  faith  is  sure  that 
there  has  been  committed  to  us  this  great  mission, 
shall  we  not  purify  ourselves  ?  Shall  we  not  organize 
ourselves  as  a  nation  for  the  work  that  lies  ahead  ? 

Purification  and  organization,  that  is  Christian- 
ization.  But  the  Christianity  of  the  future  will  be 
something  different  from  that  of  the  past.  When 
one  thinks  of  the  battles  fought,  the  men  and  women 
slain,  the  prisons  filled,  the  crimes  committed,  the 
closing  of  the  door  to  efforts  for  progress,  and  the 
closing  of  the  ear  to  cries  for  help — all  in  the  name 
of  Christianity — one  may  well  be  excused  for  sus- 
pecting that,  after  all,  not  Christ  but  Satan  has  been 
at  God's  right  hand.  How  did  this  all  come  to  be  ? 
Simply  because  of  ignorance.  The  new  Christianity 
will  have  no  room  for  ignorance.  Education  will 
be  its  watchword.  The  ideal  purification  is  a  puri- 
fication from  vice  and  immorality,  from  sin  of  every 
kind  and  from  impurity;  but  it  is  more — it  is  a 
purification  (I  use  the  word  advisedly)  from  ignor- 


AMERICA  AS  A  MISSIONARY  FIELD      181 

ance  and  prejudice,  from  narrowness  of  every  kind, 
and  from  intellectual  dishonesty.  What  is  needed  ? 
The  gospel  and  education.  The  gospel,  as  it  is 
commonly  understood  (again  I  speak  advisedly)  is 
not  sufficient.  It  will  free  men  from  vice  and 
impurity;  but,  when  thus  freed,  the  converts  would 
better  be  permitted  to  die,  unless  they  are  provided 
with  an  education  which  will  free  them  from  narrow- 
ness and  prejudice  and  dishonesty.  But,  happily 
for  humanity,  the  gospel  has  in  itself,  if  only  it  be 
permitted  to  exercise  them,  the  elements  which  incite 
to  education;  and,  in  the  future,  education  will  con- 
stitute a  larger  part  of  the  work  of  evangelization 
than  in  the  past,  both  at  home  and  abroad. 

The  call  to  mission  work  in  America  is  a  call 
from  heaven.  Can  this  be  doubted  by  anyone  who 
reads  the  pages  of  history  and  is  familiar  with  the 
achievements  of  the  last  half-century?  It  includes 
a  call  to  educate  the  Indian — poor  outcast,  for  whose 
extinction  even  Christendom  itself  has,  by  its  attitude, 
petitioned  heaven.  It  is  a  call  to  the  education  of 
the  negro,  anticipating  thus  by  thousands  of  years 
what  by  natural  development  would  have  been  the 
career  of  a  downtrodden  race. 

It  is  a  call  to  work  out  the  problems  of  the  city — 
problems  appreciated  many  centuries  ago,  when  the 
sacred  writer  described  the  building  of  the  first  city, 
and  connected  with  it  all  the  woes  and  wickedness 
of  advancing  civilization;  problems  avoided  by  the 


1 82      RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

Rechabites  of  old,  whose  ancestor  forbade  residence 
in  cities  because  of  the  attendant  temptation  and 
wrong-doing;  problems  which  today  appall  the 
stoutest  heart.  It  is  a  call  to  take  in  hand  and 
organize  that  element  which  has  not  yet  become  a 
true  part  of  our  American  civilization,  and  which, 
if  Christianized  and  guided,  will,  by  the  intermixture 
of  blood,  make  America  just  what  Palestine  was; 
which,  however,  if  left  to  itself  and  its  anarchistic 
socialism,  will  bring  down  speedy  ruin  on  our  heads, 
and  plunge  us  into  grief  more  bitter  even  than  that 
with  which  civil  war  overwhelmed  us. 

It  is  a  call  to  evangelize  this  great  West  of  ours — 
a  land  so  boundless  and  so  full  of  possibilities  as  to 
make  even  reasonable  calculation  seem  like  visionary 
dreaming.  It  is  a  call  to  establish  here  at  home  the 
foundations  for  the  evangelization  of  the  world;  for 
if  the  world  is  to  be  evangelized,  America  must  do 
it;  and  if  America  is  to  do  the  work  of  evangelizing 
the  world,  she  must  first  Christianize,  that  is,  purify 
and  educate  herself.  America  is  the  world's  great 
mission  field,  because  of  what  she  is,  and  because 
of  what  she  is  to  be.  It  is  a  call  to  train  the  boys 
and  girls  in  all  our  churches;  for  has  not  history 
shown  that  he  who  is  to  lead  must  be  trained  ?  If 
as  Christians,  we  are  to  make  progress,  we  must  have 
our  own  leaders — leaders  whom  we  ourselves  have 
trained.  It  is  a  call  to  equip  all  our  academies  and 
colleges  and  theological  seminaries,  and  to  see  to  it 


AMERICA  AS  A  MISSIONARY  FIELD      183 

that  the  instruction  given  in  these  institutions  bears 
upon  its  face  the  mark  of  truth ;  has  its  roots  in  the 
established  principles  of  the  faith. 

America,  then,  is  to  be  the  leader  of  the  world's 
influence  and  thought  during  the  next  twenty  cen- 
turies, just  as  Babylonia,  Syria,  and  England,  each 
in  turn,  has  been  leader  during  the  past  centuries. 

But,  more  than  this,  she  is  to  be  the  arena  of  an 
intellectual,  social,  and  spiritual  conflict,  in  which 
Christianity  must  vindicate  itself  against  all  opposing 
forces — a  conflict  more  serious  than  any  which  has 
yet  been  waged.  No  man  or  woman  in  our  num- 
ber doubts  for  a  moment  the  ultimate  triumph  of 
our  Christianity;  but,  in  order  that  the  triumph 
may  be  decisive,  in  order  that  the  agony  of  the  strug- 
gle may  not  be  too  greatly  prolonged,  let  us  use 
foresight  and  farsight.  Let  us  purge  our  ranks, 
putting  aside  everything  that  will  not  be  of  service 
in  the  conflict.  Let  us  organize  our  forces,  strength- 
ening at  every  point  the  places  of  vantage-ground. 
Christianity's  contribution  to  the  world  is  a  single 
thing,  and  a  simple  thing :  to  teach  the  meaning  of 
love ;  for  this  includes  God  and  humanity,  each  in  its 
relation  to  the  other.  The  message  has  been  received, 
but  the  lesson  has  not  been  learned.  Mankind  still 
lingers  in  the  kindergarten.  The  lesson,  though  in 
itself  single  and  simple,  is  very  complicated  in  its 
applications.  The  Great  Teacher  is  patient;  no  one 
knows  better  than  himself  the  importance  of  funda- 


1 84     RELIGION  AND  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

mental  training.  Centuries  will  pass;  and  gradually 
humanity  will  come  to  recognize  the  significance  of 
love;  gradually  Jesus  the  Christ  will  come  to  reign 
in  the  hearts  of  men.  In  this  work  of  educating 
humanity  to  understand  God  and  itself,  America  is 
the  training-school  for  teachers. 


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